My Hielant Hame

DESCRIPTION: "Oh for a sprig o' my ain Hielant heather." The singer recalls parting from his "faither and mither wha near broken hearted." "Sair was my thochts when I crossed the wide ocean For I had nae friend to welcome me there" He dreams of the old folks at home.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: homesickness emigration parting Scotland father mother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan3 533, "My Hielant Hame" (1 text)
Roud #6012
File: GrD2533

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My Home in Fermoy

DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls "those bright golden hours I spent long ago in my home in Fermoy" "far away o'er the wide spreading ocean": school, the Blackwater, Castlehyde, and the Angelus bells. He hopes to return but knows that many he left behind have died.
AUTHOR: Kate Dowling (source: OCanainn)
EARLIEST DATE: 1913 (according to OCanainn)
KEYWORDS: home travel return Ireland nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OCanainn, pp. 104-105, "My Home in Fermoy" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: OCan104

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My Home in Sweet Glenlea

DESCRIPTION: Singer travels to South Africa, Hindustan, Java, and Palestine, thinking all the time "the fairest was Glenlea." After an earthquake in San Francisco, he writes home for money. He returned, is met by a great crowd, marriess and lives happily in Glenlea.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1978 (OCanainn)
KEYWORDS: parting travel return marriage Africa America India Ireland
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OCanainn, pp. 62-65, "My Home in Sweet Glenlea" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: OCanainn: "[The singer] thinks it was written by a man called Cronin, who probably never ventured further from home than an occasional trip to Macroom." - BS
Presumablly shortly after the 1906 San Francicso earthquake. Such a late date also has the advantage that the singer would have heard of some of those places. The mention of South Africa might have been suggested by the Boer War. - RBW
File: OCan062

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My Home Is on the Mountain

DESCRIPTION: The singer expresses a hope and a prayer to be reunited with mother: "I want to see my mother, O can't you call her here? / It wouldn't seem so hard to die to have my mother near...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1982
KEYWORDS: religious reunion death
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
FSCatskills 78, "My Home Is on the Mountain" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FSC078 (Partial)
NOTES: Cazden et al know of no other collections of this lyric, although the melody is similar to the familiar hymn tunes "Imandra" and "Milton."
They file the piece among "religious songs," but it feels a bit like a Civil War "dying soldier boy" song. - RBW
File: FSC078

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My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains

DESCRIPTION: "I'm going back to North Carolina (x3), I never expect to see you any more." Repeat with "I'm going to leave here Monday morning," "How can I ever keep from crying," "I'm going across the Blue Ridge Mountains."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (JAFL)
KEYWORDS: love home separation farewell nonballad parting
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Warner 124, "I'm Goin' Back to North Carolina" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 42, "My Home's Across The Smokey Mountains" (1 text)
BrownIII 278, "My Home's Across the Smoky Mountains" (1 text plus a fragment)
DT, HOMSMOK
ST Wa124 (Full)
Roud #7686
RECORDINGS:
Clarence Ashley, Garley Foster, Dock Walsh & Doc Watson, "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (on Ashley03, WatsonAshley01)
Frank Bode, "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (on FBode1)
Carolina Tar Heels, "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (Victor V-40100, 1929)
Carter Family, "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (Decca 5532, 1938/Decca X2184, n.d.)
Delmore Brothers, "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (Bluebird B-8247, 1939)
Kelly Harrell, "I'm Going Back to North Carolina" (OKeh 40505, 1925; on KHarrell01)
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, "My Home's Across the Smoky Mountains" (AAFS 3155 B2)
Poplin Family, "My Home Is Not In South Carolina" (on Poplin01)
Pete Seeger, "My Home's Across the Smoky Mountains" (on PeteSeeger25)
Arthur Smith, "Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (Bluebird B-7221, 1937)
Jack Wallin, "My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains" (on Wallins1)
File: Wa124

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My Home's Across the Smokey Mountains

See My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains (File: Wa124)

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My Home's Across the Smoky Mountains

See My Home's Across the Blue Ridge Mountains (File: Wa124)

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My Home's in Montana

DESCRIPTION: "My home's in Montana, I wear a bandana, My spurs are of silver, my pony is gray. While riding the ranges my luck never changes, With my foot in the stirrup I gallop for aye." The cowboy sketches the life of a horseman following cattle in the wilderness
AUTHOR: Words: Christine Turner Curtis (?)
EARLIEST DATE: 1936 ("Singing Days" series)
KEYWORDS: work cowboy nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Ohrlin-HBT 1, "My Home's in Montana" (1 text, 1 tune)
Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 247, "My Home's in Montana" (1 text, 1 tune)
Larkin, pp. 30-31, "The Cowboy's Lament" (1 text, 1 tune, with four verses that are clearly "Streets of Laredo" but an opening that is "My Home's in Montana")
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Streets of Laredo" [Laws B1] (tune & meter, floating lyrics) and references there
cf. "The Unfortunate Rake" (tune, floating lyrics)
NOTES: This was apparently composed (based on elements of "The Streets of Laredo") as a cowboy song suitable for young people. There are reports of versions from Montana, possibly unprintable. See the notes in Ohrlin for the background.
Larkin's text may be a "missing link": It's largely "Streets of Laredo," but it starts with the "home in Montana" half-verse. - RBW
File: Ohr001

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My Horses Ain't Hungry

See The Wagoner's Lad (File: R740)

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My Husband's a Mason

DESCRIPTION: The singer tells how her (husband/father/boyfriend) works all day at his trade and then comes home and plies his trade upon her, e.g. "My husband's a mason... All day he lays bricks... At night he comes home and lays me."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1949
KEYWORDS: work sex bawdy incest
FOUND IN: US(MA,MW,SW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cray, pp. 55-61, "My Husband's a Mason" (6 texts, 2 tunes)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Used to Work in Chicago" (theme)
NOTES: In some of Cray's versions the final sexual act ("lays me/screws me/drives me/etc.") is replaced by the euphemism "drinks tea." One wonders what peculiar impulse drove anyone to sing such an explicit song and then use such a silly euphemism.
Although Cray's versions are all modern, he traces the device back to the 1707 edition of Pills to Purge Melancholy. - RBW
Why would anyone sing the euphemistic version, Bob asks? Because in the right company, it's even funnier when the listeners make the connection themselves. - PJS
File: EM055

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My Husband's Got No Courage in Him

DESCRIPTION: (Two women meet); one laments, "(My) husband's got no courage in him." She describes all she has done to encourage his "courage," but all attempts have failed. (Even now she still has her maidenhead.) (She hopes he dies so she can find another)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1701 (broadside NLScotland, Ry.III.a.10(053))
KEYWORDS: wife husband sex disability
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South),Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Kennedy 213, "Rue the Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
GreigDuncan7 1367, "My Husband's Got No Courage in Him" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Silber-FSWB, p. 171, "The Husband With No Courage In Him" (1 text)
BBI, ZN2114, "Of late it was my chance to walke"
DT, NOCOURAG* NOUCOURG2
Roud #870
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, Ry.III.a.10(053), "My Husband Has No Courage In Him," unknown, 1701
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Maids, When You're Young"
cf. "What Can a Young Lassie"
cf. "The Jolly Barber Lad" (theme)
cf. "The Old Man from Over the Sea"
File: K213

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My Irish Jaunting Car (The Irish Boy)

DESCRIPTION: "I'm Larry McHugh, a boy so true, I belong to the Emerald Isle." He tells how the girls "Think it a trate to take a seat and be drove in my jaunting car." He offers rides to all, and guidance on the best places to buy
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1935 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: technology travel nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SHenry H592, p. 41, "My Irish Jaunting Car" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13464
NOTES: Not to be confused with the much more common "The Irish Jaunting Car." - RBW
File: HHH592

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My Irish Molly-O

DESCRIPTION: The singer, (a Scotsman,) is in love with Molly. Her parents oppose the match (because he is not Catholic). Unable to win his love, he is ready to die (and makes preparations for burial). (Common versions often lose the plot, and simply speak of courting)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1842 (Joyce, The Native Music of Ireland)
KEYWORDS: love separation death courting
FOUND IN: US(MA) Ireland Australia Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (9 citations):
Greig #111, p. 2, "Irish Molly" (1 text)
GreigDuncan6 1088, "Irish Mally, O"; GreigDuncan6 1158, "The Gipsy's Warning" (11 texts, 8 tunes)
Ord, p. 131, "Irish Molly, O" (1 text)
FSCatskills 62, "My Irish Molly-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 177-178, "Irish Molly-O" (1 text, 1 tune)
O'Conor, p. 52, "Irish Molly O" (1 text)
DT, IRSHMOLL*
ADDITIONAL: Charles Gavan Duffy, editor, The Ballad Poetry of Ireland (1845), pp. 214-215, "Irish Molly"
H. Halliday Sparling, Irish Minstrelsy (London, 1888), pp. 186-187, 512, "Irish Molly"
Roud #2168
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(1787), "Irish Molly, O!" ("As I walk'd out one morning all in the month of May"), J. Pitts (London), 1819-1844; also Harding B 11(2121), Firth b.28(35) View 2 of 2[some words illegible], Johnson Ballads fol. 114, Harding B 11(4209), Harding B 17(140b), Johnson Ballads 2582, Firth c.26(181), Harding B 20(257), Firth c.26(137), 2806 c.15(243), Firth c.14(204), 2806 b.11(252), "Irish Molly, O[!]"; Johnson Ballads 340, "Irish Molly!"
LOCSinging, as106290, "Irish Molly, O," Harris (Philadelphia), 19C
NLScotland, L.C.1270(006), "Irish Molly, O," James Kay (Glasgow), c. 1845; also L.C.178.A.2(256), "Irish Molly O," unknown, c. 1860
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Often Think of Writing Home" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
The Lass of Swansea Town (Swansea Barracks) (per broadside Bodleian Harding B 11(2071) )
I Often Think of Writing Home (File: RcIOTOWH)
NOTES: GreigDuncan6 1158's two fragments entitled "The Gipsy's Warning," Roud #7358, are female and male variants of the "never lay your love On the top of a tree. The branches will wither ..." verse. The notes quote Greig: "Thinks this may be chorus of the 'Gipsy's Warning.'" The notes also say, "The printed text [of Cox's version of 'The Gypsy's Warning' in Folk-Songs of the South, JHCox 149 in this index] does not contain [these] words"; neither does the text of "Gypsy's Warning" at Digital Tradition GYPWARN, quoted from Folk Songs Out of Wisconsin. For lack of evidence that this verse goes anyplace else I have stowed it with "Irish Molly, O" which often includes that verse and has been found in Scotland [see GreigDuncan6 1088]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: FSC062

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My Irish Polly

See The Irish Girl (File: HHH711)

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My Johnnie Was a Shoemaker

See My Johnny Was a Shoemaker (File: OLcM044)

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My Johnny

DESCRIPTION: Basically a lament for Johnny, who apparently died and was buried at sea. "We're homeward bound today ... We'll drink and play (etc) but always think of Johnny" Chorus: "In the middle of the sea, my boy is floating free, so far away from me, my love."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1921 (Richard Runciman Terry, _The Shanty Book_)
KEYWORDS: foc's'le shanty lament farewell
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hugill, pp. 539-540, "My Johnny" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Rather slow and sentimental for a shanty, but Terry's source said it was used at the capstan. - SL
File: Hugi539

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My Johnny Was a Shoemaker

DESCRIPTION: "My Johnny was a shoemaker But now he's gone to sea." He will be a captain "Of a bold and galliant crew And then across the sea he'll roam All for to marry me ... And when I am a captain's wife I'll sing the whole day long"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1865 (broadside, LOCSinging as202550)
KEYWORDS: courting separation sailor nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1848, "Oh My Johnny Was a Shoemaker" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Greig #110, p. 3, "My Johnnie Was a Shoemaker" (1 text)
OLochlainn-More 44, "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, JOHNSHOE
Roud #1388
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 18(366), "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker," H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864; also Harding B 18(670), "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker"
LOCSinging, as202550, "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker," H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864; also sb20295b, "My Johnny Was a Shoemaker"
NOTES: Broadsides LOCSinging as202550 and Bodleian Harding B 18(366) are duplicates.
Broadsides LOCSinging sb20295b and Bodleian Harding B 18(670) are duplicates.
The description is from broadside LOCSinging as202550.
GreigDuncan8 speculates that the Greig text is "probably from print as he does not identify any source." Greig's text is very close to the De Marsan texts but excludes the chorus "But now he's gone to reef top-sail, And sail across the briny sea, e, e, e--, My Johnny was a shoemaker."
Broadside LOCSinging as202550 and Bodleian Harding B 18(366): H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: OLcM044

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My Jolly Shantyboy

DESCRIPTION: The singer overhears a girl praising her shantyboy and lamenting that her parents dislike him. She is advised to marry a drygoods clerk rather than "throw herself away." But "If I had my will I'd love him still, my jolly shantyboy."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1957 (Fowke)
KEYWORDS: love logger mother father separation
FOUND IN: Canada(Que)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fowke-Lumbering #55, "My Jollu Shantyboy" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #4383
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Bonny Laboring Boy" [Laws M14] (tune, theme)
NOTES: Fowke considers this a reworking of "The Bonny Laboring Boy" [Laws M14], and this is nearly certain; it's absolutely certain that it's derived from a song of that type. I thought about lumping them, as I did with "The Railroad Boy." But this song is so defective (only two stanzas) that we cannot tell its final outcome; I think it has to remain separate until we find a version with an ending. - RBW
File: FowL55

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My Jolly-Hearted Ploughboy

DESCRIPTION: "Sailors they are fickle, And the gardeners they're nae true, But my jolly-hearted ploughboy, I'll go along wi' you." It's fine on the sea but she wishes she were in her lover's arms. He gives her "the napkin frae his neck Which cost him guineas three"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad clothes farming
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 845, "My Jolly-Hearted Ploughboy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #6223
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Sailors They Are Fickle
File: GrD4845

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My Joy and Comfort

See Come Write Me Down (The Wedding Song) (File: K126)

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My Lad's a Sailor

DESCRIPTION: "My lad's a sailor ... he's going to marry me." In twenty-five days "I'll trim my hat wi' velvet, and gie my lad a dram"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: marriage clothes drink nonballad sailor
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan8 1582, "My Lad's a Sailor" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #13504
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Five-and-Twenty Masons" (tune, per GreigDuncan8)
File: GrD81582

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My Laddie Sits Ower Late Up

DESCRIPTION: "My laddie sits ower late up, My hinny sits ower late up.... Betwixt the pint pot and the cup." The singer calls Johnny home to his bairn, lamenting the money he wastes: "When I cry out, 'Laddie, cum hame,' He calls oot again for mair beer."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1900 (Stokoe/Reay)
KEYWORDS: home drink wife husband
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Stokoe/Reay, p. 192, "My Laddie Sits Ower Late Up" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST StoR192 (Full)
Roud #3181
File: StoR192

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My Lagan Love

DESCRIPTION: "Where Lagan stream sings lullaby, There blows a lily fair." The singer admits the girl "has my heart in thrall. No life I own, nor liberty, For love is lord of all." The singer recalls the girl's life in the bogs and her sweet songs
AUTHOR: Joseph Campbell
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (recording, John McCormack)
KEYWORDS: love beauty courting nonballad bug music
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
DT, LAGANLUV*
Roud #1418
RECORDINGS:
Margaret Barry, "My Lagan Love" (on IRMBarry-Fairs)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wake of William Orr" (tune)
NOTES: According to the notes on IRMBarry-Fairs, this art song entered the traditional repertoire (to the extent it did) as a result of a pop recording by John McCormack in 1910. - RBW
File: DTlaganl

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My Last Farewell to Stirling

DESCRIPTION: The convict bitterly prepares to leave Stirling for Van Dieman's Land. He laments the pheasants he will not disturb, the rabbits he cannot hunt. He bids farewell to his (Jeannie), and hopes she will find another love
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: love separation transportation hunting poaching
FOUND IN: Australia Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1534, "Farewell to Stirling" (5 texts, 3 tunes)
Greig #171, p. 1, "Farewell to Stirling" (1 text)
Manifold-PASB, p. 23, "My Last Farewell to Stirling" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, FAREWLST
Roud #5160
File: PASB023

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My Last Gold Dollar

DESCRIPTION: "My last (gold/ole) dollar is gone (x2), My whiskey bill is due an' my board bill too...." "Oh darling, I'm crazy about you... and another girl too..." "Oh darling, won't you go my bail?..." "Oh darling, six months ain't too long...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (American Mountain Songs)
KEYWORDS: poverty hardtimes prison courting drink
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE,So)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Randolph 671, "My Last Gold Dollar" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 381-382, "My Last Gold Dollar" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 671A)
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 112, "My Last Gold Dollar" (1 single-stanza fragment)
Lomax-FSNA 149, "My Last Ole Dollar" (1 text, 1 tune)
Spaeth-WeepMore, pp. 130-131, "My Last Old Dollar" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, OLDOLLAR*
Roud #4310
RECORDINGS:
Bascom Lamar Lunsford, "The Last Gold Dollar" (on BLLunsford01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "I Wish I Was a Mole in the Ground" (floating lyrics)
cf. "New River Train" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Six Months Ain't Long" (lyrics)
NOTES: We might note that the line "last gold dollar" had a slightly different meaning in the nineteenth century. During the Civil War, the Union government issued both gold-backed and unbacked ("greenback") dollars. The greenbacks were, not surprisingly, treated with less respect and discounted. A man who spend his last gold dollar might still have money -- but only the less valuable greenbacks.
Of course, since the song is often sung "My last OLD dollar," that may be just a bit of excessive historical analysis. - RBW
File: R671

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My Last Ol' Dollar

See My Last Gold Dollar (File: R671)

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My Last Old Dollar

See My Last Gold Dollar (File: R671)

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My Last Ole Dollar

See My Last Gold Dollar (File: R671)

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My Li'l John Henry

See Little John Henry (File: LoF300)

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My Little Dear, So Fare You Well

See Farewell, Sweetheart (The Parting Lovers, The Slighted Sweetheart) (File: R756)

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My Little Four-Leaf Shamrock from Glenore, The

See The Shamrock from Glenore (File: HHH034)

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My Little German Home Across the Sea

DESCRIPTION: "How I love to think about the days so full of joy and glee, But they never will come back again to me." The singer recalls home and family in Germany, but now mother and father are dead and he cannot return home. He wishes he could
AUTHOR: George S. Knight ?
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (Pound); reportedly copyrighted 1877
KEYWORDS: home Germany family mother father separation emigration
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 870, "My Little German Home Across the Sea" (1 text plus a fragment, 1 tune)
Randolph/Cohen, pp. 536-538, "My Little German Home Across the Sea" (1 text, 1 tune -- Randolph's 870A)
Rorrer, p. 91, "I Left My German Home" (1 text)
Roud #7429
RECORDINGS:
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "I Left My German Home" (No known Columbia release; recorded 1930)
Ernest V. Stoneman, "My Little German Home Across the Sea" (Edison 51909, 1927)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" (tune) and references there
NOTES: This piece is probably based on Will S. Hays's "The Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane;" it uses the same melody for the verse, although the chorus is missing. "Log Cabin" of course gave us an assortment of other parodies, including "The Little Old Sod Shanty on my Claim." - RBW
File: R870

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My Little One's Waiting for Me

DESCRIPTION: "In the dell where the brook's gently flowing, On the bench by the old willow tree... My little one's waiting for me." The singer describes how he happily goes home from work (or wherever) to home and the "little one"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: love home nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 850, "My Little One's Waiting for Me" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7450
File: R850

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My Little Organ Grinder

See The Organ Grinder (File: EM341)

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My Little Yaller Coon

DESCRIPTION: "My little yaller coon Done got back here so soon, Dat I ain't yet got De big fat coon For de 'tater an' de pone, To eat in de light of de moon."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: food animal
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 179, (no title) (1fragment)
NOTES: Scarborough considers this a song about eating raccoons. Given the coon's diet, I rather doubt it was ever considered a delicacy; I wonder if there isn't something else going on here. - RBW
File: ScaNF179

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My Lone Rock by the Sea

DESCRIPTION: "Oh tell me not the woods are fair Now spring is on the way." The singer admits the beauty of the land, "But ask me, woo me not to leave My lone rock by the sea." He describes the beauties of life by the shore
AUTHOR: Charlie C. Converse
EARLIEST DATE: 1857 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: home sea nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 842, "My Lone Rock by the Sea" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7447
NOTES: According to Spaeth, this tune later supplied part of the melody for "Aloha Oe." And Randolph's source noted its connection to "these fool 'Hawaiian' songs." - RBW
File: R842

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My Long Journey Home

See Two Dollar Bill (Long Journey Home) (File: CSW177)

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My Lord 'Size

DESCRIPTION: "The jailor for trial had brought up a thief" as lawyers look for work and gawkers look for sensation -- when the notice the body of Lord 'Size. Witnesses are sought and questioned. The jury is trying to reach a verdict when the body comes to life
AUTHOR: Words: John Shield
EARLIEST DATE: 1900 (Stokoe/Reay)
KEYWORDS: humorous trial judge lawyer
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Stokoe/Reay, pp. 142-144, "My Lord 'Size" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #3164
NOTES: According to Stokoe, this "is commemorative of an unlucky accident that actually occurred to one of Her Majesty's Judges of Assize, Baron Graham, about the year 1810." Though, in 1810, the King was George III and it wouldn't have been Her Majesty's Judge....
The whole thing reminds me very much of the Barrister's Dream in The Hunting of the Snark, though such courtroom jokes are common in English literature (see, e.g., The Pickwick Papers). - RBW
File: StoR142

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My Lord Knows the Way

DESCRIPTION: "My Lord knows the way through the wilderness -- all I have to do is follow (x2). Strength for today is mine all the way, and all I need for tomorrow; My Lord knows...."
AUTHOR: Sidney E. Cox
EARLIEST DATE: 1951
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
FSCatskills 81, "My Lord Knows the Way" (2 texts, tune under #80; sung as a medley with #80, "Heavenly Sunlight (Heavenly Sunshine)")
ST FSC081 (Full)
File: FSC081

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My Lord Says There's Room Enough in Heaven for Us All

See Room Enough (File: JDM094)

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My Lord, What a Morning

See When the Stars Begin to Fall (File: LoF237)

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My Lord, What a Mourning

See When the Stars Begin to Fall (File: LoF237)

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My Love He Is a Sailor Lad

DESCRIPTION: "My love he is a sailor lad He's on the ocean blue." The singer says her sailor's heart is "the compass true" that points to her. She turns her head aside when landsmen smile at her and wishes for a safe breeze to bring him home.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad sailor separation
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan5 939, "My Love He Is a Sailor Lad" (1 text)
Roud #6754
File: GrD5939

---

My Love He Stands

DESCRIPTION: The singer thinks of when her love stood "in yon stable door ... combing down his yellow hair." He's "across the sea ... forsaken a lover true And followed the one that ye never knew" She wonders if he thinks of her.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan6)
KEYWORDS: love separation nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan6 1086, "My Love He Stands" (2 fragments, 1 tune)
Roud #6776
File: GrD61086

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My Love is a Rider

See The Bucking Broncho (The Broncho Buster) [Laws B15] (File: LB15)

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My Love Is Like a Dewdrop

See Farewell He (File: FSC41)

---

My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose

DESCRIPTION: "My love is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June, My love is like a melody that's sweetly sprung in June." The singer promises to love "Till all the seas gang dry" and return to his love though his voyage takes him "ten thousand mile"
AUTHOR: Robert Burns
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: love nonballad separation return beauty
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Silber-FSWB, p. 140, "My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose" (1 text)
DT, REDREDRO*
ADDITIONAL: James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #453, p. 582, "A red red rose" (1 text, 1 tune, from 1794)
Roud #12946
RECORDINGS:
Mrs. McGrath, "My Love Is Like a Red, Red Rose" (on Lomax43, LomaxCD1743)
NOTES: The irony of this song, of course, is that Burns himself was about as constant as -- well, we won't go into that....
I don't know if this song ever did much in tradition, but it's certainly one of the more often-printed of Burns's poems (printed, e.g., as item CXC in Palgrave's Golden Treasury). - RBW
File: FSWB140C

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My Love Is on the Ocean

See Farewell He (File: FSC41)

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My Love is so Pretty

DESCRIPTION: The singer waxes lyrical in his love's praise -- telling how she turns everyone's heads with her straight, slender figure, "mouth always twittering," and "cheeks like cauliflower." He joyfully prepares for his wedding.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1945 (Flanders/Olney)
KEYWORDS: courting love marriage nonballad youth
FOUND IN: US(NE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Flanders/Olney, pp. 7-9, "My Love is so Pretty" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FO007 (Partial)
Roud #4677
File: FO007

---

My Love John

See The False Young Man (The Rose in the Garden, As I Walked Out) (File: FJ166)

---

My Love Lays Cold Beneath My Feet

DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls telling tales by the fire. She says she would comfort her love if he appeared. But "My love's laying so cold beneath my feet." She says that he promised to marry her and no other, "but don't my love lay so cold beneath my feet"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: early 1960s (collected from Caroline Hughes)
KEYWORDS: love death burial separation
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MacSeegTrav 61, "My Love Lays Cold Beneath My Feet" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #2513
NOTES: When Paul Stamler indexed this book, he despaired of this piece as a conglomerate. MacColl and Seeger couldn't classify it with anything, either.
Caroline Hughes seems to have been one of those unusual people who could gather together lines from all sorts of songs and produce a relatively coherent result. I strongly suspect this is the result of such a process; of the six opportunities for rhyme in the song, only three actually do rhyme, and always with the same word (e.g. "feet" is rhymed with "feet"), and stanza one has an aabc rhyme while stanza 3 is abab. (There are no rhymes in stanza two).
Most such songs have a dominant element, and we would classify them there. This song simply does not. It is, as best I can tell, absolutely unique. So I think we have to classify it separately, a de facto composition of Caroline Hughes. - RBW
File: McCST061

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My Love She's but a Lassie Yet (I)

DESCRIPTION: "My love, she's but a lassie yet (x2), We'll let her stand a year or twa, She'll no be half sae saucy yet!" Singer tells of a hard courtship, calls for more drink, and concludes, "The minister kisst the fiddler's wife, He couldna preach for thinkin' o't."
AUTHOR: Words: Robert Burns
EARLIEST DATE: 1803 (_Scots Musical Museum_ #225); cf. Tom Thumb's Pretty Song Book of c. 1744
KEYWORDS: courting love youth drink nonballad clergy
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (6 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1871, "We're A' Dry wi' the Drinkin' O't" (1 text)
Meredith/Covell/Brown, p. 226, "My Love is but a Lassie Yet" (1 tune)
Opie-Oxford2 524, "My love, she's but a Lassie Yet" (3 texts)
DT, LUVELASS*
ADDITIONAL: James Kinsley, editor, _Burns: Complete Poems and Songs_ (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #293, pp. 409-410, "My love she's but a lassie yet" (1 text, 1 tune, from 1790)
Robert Chambers, The Scottish Songs (Edinburgh, 1829), Vol II, p. 473, "My Love, She's But a Lassie Yet"
ST MCB226 (Full)
Roud #8979
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lady Badinscoth's Reel" (tune, per Burns)
cf. "Green Grow the Rashes" (tune, per GreigDuncan8)
NOTES: The verse, "We're all dry wi' the drinkin' o't... The minister kisst the fiddler's wife, He couldna preach for thinkin' o't" precedes Burns; it appeared (in a more English version) in the Pretty Songs of Tommy Thumb in 1744 (see Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #23, p. 37). This is also in Herd's manuscript of 1776. Whether there is more to the piece than that I do not know. - RBW
Opie-Oxford2: "This song fragment ... had all the while quietly been residing in the English nursery. where it appeared about 1744.... Burns also borrowed the title 'My Love, she's but a Lassie yet'. The tune appears in Walsh's Caledonian Country Dances (c.1740), and in Johnson's Twelve Country Dances (1749) under the title 'Foot's Vagaries', as well as in the Museum." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: MCB226

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My Love She's But a Lassie Yet (II)

DESCRIPTION: The singer loves beutiful Jean, fears her scorn, and says "I'll love thee ... till life's last close" If he were rich he'd give "a monarch's ransom for thy hand"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1907 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: courting love beauty nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #70, pp. 2-3, "My Love She's But a Lassie Yet" (1 fragment)
GreigDuncan4 733, "My Love She's But a Lassie Yet" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #6166
File: GrD4733

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My Love's a Plooman

DESCRIPTION: "My love is a ploughman and follows the plough." The singer has promised the ploughman that she will love him. She says she will be true and never rue her promise.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: farming love promise
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #130, p. 1, "The Plooman Laddie" (1 fragment: only the first verse)
GreigDuncan3 446, "My Love's a Plooman" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #5957
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Plooman Laddie (I)" (llyrics)
NOTES: Greig #135, p. 3, explains that a correspondent says the first verse of his composite "The Plooman Laddie" is from a different song. This is the verse printed in GreigDuncan3 [also verse 1 of Ord]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD3446

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My Love's Gien Me

DESCRIPTION: "My love's gien me a gay gold ring," says the singer, "but I've gien him a better thing." In the garden there is a straw bee-hive "full o' honey The lad that loes his lassie weel Will never want for money."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan8)
KEYWORDS: ring sex money nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan8 1846, "My Love's Gien Me" (1 text)
Roud #13595
File: GrD81846

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My Lovely Irish Rose

DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls leaving Mary, his "lovely Irish Rose," and sailing to America. "The strangers' land is fair to see, the strangers too are kind," but he'd rather be home. Nothing compares with Mary and "those many happy days spent with my Irish Rose"
AUTHOR: Fred Kearney (source: McBride)
EARLIEST DATE: 1988 (McBride)
KEYWORDS: love emigration farewell home separation America Ireland
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
McBride 51, "My Lovely Irish Rose" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: McBride: "This song is common all over Ireland thanks mainly to recordings of it done on 78 rpm records in the 1930' and 40's." - BS
File: McB1051

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My Lovely Nancy

See Queen Among the Heather (File: K141)

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My Lovely Sailor Boy

See The Sailor and His Bride [Laws K10] (File: LK10)

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My Lovie She's Little

DESCRIPTION: The singer says his love is little, with "handsome foot" and "weel-made middle." He wishes she would fancy him. If she were ale the sight of her would warm him on the coldest night. He would buy her new shoes.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: courting love clothes nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan5 937, "My Lovie She's Little," GreigDuncan8 Addenda, "My Lovie She's Little" (16 texts, 17 tunes)
Roud #6752
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Carrickfergus" (tune, per GreigDuncan5)
cf. "Oh Gin My Love War a Red Rose" (lyrics about ale warming on the coldest night)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Courting in Yon Rashy Glen
File: GrD5937

---

My Lovie Was a Shoemaker

See The Gallant Shoemaker (File: Ord102)

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My Lovin' Father (When the World's On Fire)

DESCRIPTION: "My lovin' father, When the world's on fire, Don't you want God's bosom For to be your pillow? Hide me, oh thou, in the rock of ages, Rock of ages, cleft for me." (Similarly with mother and perhaps other relatives)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (recording, Carter Family)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 637, "My Lovin' Father" (1 short text, 1 tune)
ST R637 (Full)
Roud #4225; also probably 5119
RECORDINGS:
The Carter Family, "When the World's On Fire" (Victor V-40293, 1930/Montgomery Ward M-4229, 1933)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "This Land Is Your Land" (tune)
SAME TUNE:
Charlie Monroe's Boys "(New) When the World's On Fire" (Montgomery Ward M-7574, 1938)
NOTES: The version of this recorded by the Carter Family, or one of its relatives, is probably the tune-source for Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." - RBW
File: R637

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My Lowlands Away

See Lowlands (My Lowlands Away) (File: PBB100)

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My Lucky and I

DESCRIPTION: Lucky and the singer went to the mill. Lucky fell in and drowned herself. He pulled her out by her hair but she was dead.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: drowning hair death
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1515, "My Lucky and I" (1 fragment)
Roud #7174
File: GrD71515

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My Lula Gal

See Bang Away, Lulu (I) (File: EM173)

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My Lula Lou

DESCRIPTION: "On the banks of the noble Cumberland I spent many happy hours Wandering there with my Lula Lou, Kentucky's sweetest flower." "She buckled on my sabre there." "The fatal shot has done its work"; now he waits for her to join him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (Fuson)
KEYWORDS: soldier separation love
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fuson, pp. 124-125, "My Lula Lou" (1 text)
ST Fus124 (Partial)
Roud #16367
NOTES: The ending of this song, at least as found in Fuson, is confused: The boy is shot, "and fainted and fell, and fell as dead," but "to-day his heart faints for your voice." - RBW
File: Fus124

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My Lulu

DESCRIPTION: "My Lulu hugged and kissed me, She wrung my hand and cried, She said I was the sweetest thing That ever lived or died." The singer praises Lulu and threatens any who court her. (He will follow her anywhere, but she deserts him)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg)
KEYWORDS: love courting separation abandonment floatingverses
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Sandburg, p. 378, "My Lulu" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 178, "Lulu" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 182-184, "Lulu" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST San378 (Full)
Roud #3435
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Pig at Home in the Pen" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: I suppose this could be a clean version of one of the "Bang Away, Lulu" songs, but the scansion appears slightly different. - RBW
File: San378

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My Ma Was Born in Texas

DESCRIPTION: "My ma was born in Texas, my pa in Tennessee," and the singer was born as they moved to California. He left home to become a cowboy. He married a girl; she proved to have seven children. He caught her with another man and shot him; he is sentenced to life
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1966
KEYWORDS: courting infidelity murder prison punishment
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fife-Cowboy/West 33, "My Ma Was Born in Texas" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #4808
NOTES: This was collected by Edith Fowke in Lakefield, Ontario. Don't ask me how it got there. - RBW
File: FCW33

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My Maggie She Can Wash

DESCRIPTION: Farmer Gordie Duff met Maggie at Porter Fair and he hired her as "dairy maid and gave her right good pa.y" "My Maggie she can wash ... shew ... patch a coat ... like new ... darn ... keep a hoose and ... fireside ... she's aye my joy and pride"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: farming servant work
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 731, "My Maggie She Can Wash" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Roud #6164
File: GfD4731

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My Mammy Don't Love Me

DESCRIPTION: "My mammy don't love me, She won't by me no shoes, Won't give me no corn-licker, Won't tell me no news." The man asks what he has done: "killed nobody, I've done no hanging crime." She(?) says that a man who mistreats her will treat others the same
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1921 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: hardtimes drink crime punishment execution
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 314, "My Mammy Don't Love Me" (1 text)
NOTES: The text in Brown is so short as to be almost meaningless; is it the story of a wild woman separated from her husband? Of a wild boy? It may well include floating material which adds to the confusion. - RBW
File: Br3314

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My Mammy Stoled a Cow

DESCRIPTION: "Steal up, young ladies, My mammy stoled a cow. Steal up, my darlin' chile, My mammy stoled a cow." "Stoled that cow im Baltimo', My mammy stoled a cow." "Steal all around, don't slight no one, My mammy stoled a cow."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: dancetune theft animal
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 116, "My Mammy Stoled a Cow" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Scarborough claims that the reported theft in this song is "used merely as an excuse to bring in the directions of stealing up in the dance." - RBW
File: ScaNF116

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My Mammy Told Me (Don't Marry No Girl You Know)

DESCRIPTION: "My mammy told me long years ago, 'Son, don't you marry no girl you know. Spend all your money, sell all your clothes, Then what'll become of you the Lord only knows."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: marriage warning
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 316, "My Mammy Told Me" (3 short texts)
File: Br3316

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My Man John

See The Keys of Canterbury (File: R354)

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My Martha Ann

See Mary Ann (File: FJ142)

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My Mary Ann

See Henry and Mary Ann (Henry the Sailor Boy) (File: HHH037)

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My Maryland

See Maryland! My Maryland (File: RJ19130)

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My Meg

DESCRIPTION: The singer is in the local pub telling "my great deeds And ither great things o' the nation" when his brother Jim tells him to go home "for your Meg she is gettin' a bairn." It's good to have a good wife "your joys and your sorrows to be sharin'."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: marriage bragging drink
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1274, "My Meg" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7189
File: GrD71274

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My Minnie Ment My Auld Breeks

See Robin Tamson's Smiddy [Laws O12] (File: LO12)

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My Mither Built a Wee, Wee House

DESCRIPTION: The singer says "How can I keep my maidenhead Amang sae many men?" "My mither built a tiny house To keep me frae the men." The walls fell. "The Captain had a guinea for't, The Colonel he bad ten." No silver: "I'll give it to a bonnie lad" as mother did.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1824 (Sharpe)
KEYWORDS: sex virginity money nonballad mother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1727, "Hi Tak the Bonnie Lassie" (1 text)
DT, HOWKEEP
ADDITIONAL: Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, A Ballad Book (Edinburgh, 1891, reprint of 1824 edition), Vol I, #18 pp. 47-49, "My Mither Built a Wee, Wee House"
Roud #13128
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "There's Nae Luck Aboot the Hoose" (tune, per GreigDuncan8)
cf. "Birks of Abergeldie" (tune, per Sharpe)
cf. "What My Minnie Did" (theme)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
How Can I Keep My Maidenhead
NOTES: GreigDuncan8 about that version: "Sung ... as far back as 1867."
An argument can be made that GreigDuncan8 should be split from Sharpe [and Burns (see Digital Tradition version at DT, HOWKEEP)]. I see it as a song that is certainly derived from Sharpe and has changed some details. A description of GreigDuncan8: Father builds a house to keep the girl from the men. Mother would add a window so she can see them. The girls says "What can a bonnie lassie dee Among so many men" - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81727

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My Mither Is Turnin' Auld

DESCRIPTION: The singer's mother is getting old and would have her child behave but if she were young again she'd behave just like the rest.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1899 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: nonballad mother age
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1422, "My Mither Is Turnin' Auld" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7266
NOTES: The current description is based on the GreigDuncan7 text. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD71422

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My Mither She Feed Me

See The Bed-Making (File: Ord199)

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My Mither Was a Cankert Fairy

DESCRIPTION: The singer complains that her ill-natured mother would not let her court Harry, who has left her. "I hae nane but Jocky only." She wishes "Jockie wad but steal me"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: courting nonballad mother
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1342, "My Mither Was a Cankert Fairy" (1 text)
Roud #7224
File: GrD71342

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My Mother and Your Mother

DESCRIPTION: "My mother and your mother Were hanging out clothes; My mother came to your mother And snipped off her nose."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Henry, from Mrs. Henry C. Gray, or her maid)
KEYWORDS: mother clothes fight
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #581, p. 234, "(My mother and your mother)"
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 240, (no title) (1 short text)
NOTES: The text given here is sort of a reconstruction of something I vaguely remember. It's sort of an infant game; on the last line, the speaker grabs the listener's note between index and middle fingers and pretends to cut it off as with a scissors.
At least, that's what I remember. The Baring-Goulds have a different version of the rhyme ("My mother and your mother Went over the way, Said my mother to your mother, It's chop-a-nose day"), and their version of nose-chopping is two-handed.
Henry's informant had a very different version: Instead of nose-chopping, Mother #1 merely PULLED Mother #2's nose. Curiously, Henry's informant also claimed that there was more to the song.
Incidentally, while actually chopping off the nose was not common in history, slitting the nostrils as a punishment for crime is well-attested. - RBW
File: MHAp240A

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My Mother Bid Me

See Old Man Came Over the Moor, An (Old Gum Boots and Leggings) (File: R066)

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My Mother Said (Gypsies in the Wood)

DESCRIPTION: "My mother said that I never should Play with the gypsies in the wood. The wood was dark; the grass was green; In came Sally with a tamborine." "I went to the sea -- no ship to get across... Sally tell my mother I shall never come back."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1870 (Kilvert, according to Opie-Oxford2)
KEYWORDS: playparty Gypsy mother separation floatingverses
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Opie-Oxford2 362, "My mother said that I never should" (1 fragment)
Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #603, p. 240, "(My mother said that I never should)"
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, third edition, 1928 (type reset 1953), p. 535, ("My Mother said that I never should") (1 short text)
Roud #13187
NOTES: The second verse of this, of course, floats in part; I have no idea whether it was originally integral to this song, which is thought to be quite old though the Baring-Goulds claim it was not published before de la Mare in 1922. The Opies also consider this the first multi-verse published version, but mention sources who seem to remember it from the nineteenth century. They also note some curious classical relatives of the tune. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: BGMG603

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My Mother Said that I Must Go

DESCRIPTION: "My mother said that I must go To fetch my father's dinner, o. Chappit tatties, beef and steak, Two red herrings, and a bawbee bake."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964 (Montgomerie)
KEYWORDS: mother father food nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Montgomerie-ScottishNR 145, "(My mother said that I must go)" (1 text)
File: MSNR145

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My Mother Was a Lady

DESCRIPTION: Two (drummers) come to a hotel for dinner, and harass the waitress. Eventually she bursts out, "My mother was a lady... I came to this great city To find a brother dear...." One drummer knows her brother, and offers to marry her
AUTHOR: Edward B. Marks
EARLIEST DATE: 1896 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: family servant brother separation marriage
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
LPound-ABS, 107, pp. 218-220, "The Two Drummers" (1 text)
DT, MTHLADY
Roud #2982
RECORDINGS:
Mack Allen [pseud., for Vernon Dalhart], "Mother Was a Lady" (Harmony 721-H, 1928)
Arkansas Woodchopper [pseud. for Luther Ossenbrink], "If Brother Jack Were Here" (Supertone 9628, 1930)
Ted Chestnut, "My Mother Was A Lady" (Champion 15524 [as Cal Turner]/Supertone 9180 [as Alvin Bunch], 1928)
Jerry Colonna, "My Mother Was a Lady" (Columbia 35371, 1940)
Walter Dalton, "If Brother Jack Were Here" (Perfect 12468, 1928)
Morgan Denmon, "The Two Drummers" (OKeh 45306, 1929; rec. 1927)
Warde Ford, "My mother was a lady (Brother Jack)" (AFS 4201 A1, 1938; tr.; in AMMEM/Cowell)
Beatrice Kay & the Elm City 4, "My Mother Was a Lady" (Columbia 35460, 1940)
Jimmie Rodgers, "If Brother Jack Were Here" (Victor 21433, 1928; Bluebird B-5482, 1934; Victor 23193, n.d.; rec. 1927)
Arnold Keith Storm, "Two Drummers" (on AKStorm01)
Frankie Wallace [pseud. for Frankie Marvin], "If Brother Jack Were Here" (Domino 0261, c. 1928)
NOTES: "Drummer" = "salesman." - PJS
File: LPnd217

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My Mother-In-Law

DESCRIPTION: Dialect song. The singer grumbles "My life is all troubles... I'd rather be sent off to jail or to Congress Dan live all my life mit my mother-in-law." He complains of her ugliness. He claims she beats him. He says he married his wife, not her family
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1942 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: family abuse humorous
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 395, "My Mother-In-Law" (1 text)
Roud #4650
File: R395

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My Mother's Last Goodbye

DESCRIPTION: Charlie "left my dear old homestead and went away to sea" after his parents tell him "let no false pride make you forget the loving ones at home," When he returns his parents have died. "My gold it had no joy for me for all its joys was fled"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1980 (recording, James McDermott)
KEYWORDS: rambling return separation death gold father mother
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
McBride 20, "Darling Son" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9705
RECORDINGS:
James McDermott, "My Mother's Last Goodbye" (on Voice12)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "There's No One Like Mother to Me" (subject)
File: RcMMoLaG

---

My Name is Ben Hall

DESCRIPTION: "My name is Ben Hall, from Murrurundi I came; The cause of my turn-out you all know the same... I was forced to the bush my sorrows to drown." Hall recalls his skill as a robber, and toasts his imprisoned companions
AUTHOR: Tune fitted by J. S. Manifold
EARLIEST DATE: 1964
KEYWORDS: abuse outlaw police Australia
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Manifold-PASB, p. 47, "My Name is Ben Hall" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Ben Hall" (subject)
cf. "The Ballad of Ben Hall" (subject)
cf. "The Death of Ben Hall" (subject)
cf. "Streets of Forbes" (subject)
NOTES: Based on something found in Paterson's Old Bush Songs, but significantly modified by Manifold. The result probably does not qualify as original. For background, see the several other Ben Hall songs. - RBW
File: PASB047

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My Name is Death

See Death and the Lady (File: ShH22)

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My Name is Donald Blue

See Whiskey Is My Name (Donald Blue) (File: HHH835)

---

My Name is Edward Gallovan

DESCRIPTION: Edward Gallovan from Wexford courts Mary Riley. He tells her they will sail to America with 20 pounds she has saved. He kills her intending to use her money to escape. The body is found. He is convicted and executed.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Creighton-SNewBrunswick)
KEYWORDS: courting execution murder trial gallows-confessions
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 92, "My Name is Edward Gallovan" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST CrSNB092 (Partial)
NOTES: Creighton-SNewBrunswick calls this "The Wexford Girl" though the singer's title is "My Name is Edward Gallovan." Creighton then goes on to make this an instance of "The Wexford Girl." Except that Wexford, probably Ireland, is mentioned and that a man murders a woman I see no connection. - BS
Nor I; there are several things here which remind me of other songs (the obvious example being the first line, which may have come from "The Flying Cloud"; the only other reference to the murderer calls him "James"). But "The Wexford Girl" is not one of those songs. Roud nonetheless lumps them. - RBW
File: CrSNB092

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My Name is Edward Kelly

DESCRIPTION: The early adventures of Ned Kelly, told in the first person. He turned to robbing when his sister was harassed by police. He has escaped all attempts to catch him. He hopes to die in battle like Donahue rather than be treated like a government slave
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964 (Manifold)
KEYWORDS: outlaw Australia escape abuse
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1855 - Birth of Ned Kelly
1880 - Execution of Kelly. His last words are reported to have been "Such is life."
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 112-114, "My Name is Edward Kelly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manifold-PASB, pp. 64-65, "My Name is Edward Kelly" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 91-93, "My Name is Edward Kelly" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Kelly Gang" (subject)
cf. "Ye Sons of Australia" (subject)
cf. "Kelly Song (Farewell Dan and Edward Kelly)" (subject)
cf. "Kelly Was Their Captain" (subject)
cf. "Ballad of the Kelly Gang" (subject)
cf. "Stringybark Creek" (subject)
cf. "The Kelly Gang Were Strong" (subject)
NOTES: This song dates itself to Kelly's twenty-fourth year. Despite his hope to die in battle, he was captured and executed the next year. - RBW
File: FaE112

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My Name Is John Johanna

See The State of Arkansas (The Arkansas Traveler II) [Laws H1] (File: LH01)

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My Name is Laban Childers

DESCRIPTION: A song of a volunteer who served in the First World War. He describes how troops were assembled and trained, with many local young men leaving their homes and work. His friend Martin Borders is killed. He says he will not forget
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: war soldier work separation death
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Thomas-Makin', pp. 99-100, (no title) (1 text)
File: ThBa099

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My Name is Morgan (But It Ain't J. P.)

See Bill Morgan and His Gal (File: RcBMAHG)

---

My Name is Yon Yonson

DESCRIPTION: "My name is Yon Yonson, I come from Visconsin, I work in the lumber mills there, Ven I valk down the street, all the people I meet, say, 'Hello, vot's your name?' and I say...." and repeat until someone rebels
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Sinclair Lewis, _Dodsworth_)
KEYWORDS: humorous cumulative
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
ADDITIONAL: Walker D. Wyman, _Wisconsin Folklore_, University of Wisconsin Extension (?), 1979, pp. 71, ("My Name is Yon Yonson") (1 text)
Sinclair Lewis, _Dodsworth_, 1929
NOTES: The form quoted in the description does not appear to be original. Wyman's version is not in dialect (I've quoted Leisy's text, even though I've never heard a Norwegian who could pronounce "th" but could not pronounce "w"; it's either or neither). Also. Wyman's last line is simply "All the people I meet Ask how I came to be there." I suspect the latter form would not have been remembered had not someone "circularized" the poem. But since no author is known, there are variant texts, and Leisy has a tune, this *might* be a folk song. So here it is.
Credit to Jim Dixon for pointing out to me the 1929 version in Sinclair Lewis's Dodsworth. This is a version in true Scandihoovian dialect, and properly circular: "Ven I go down de street, All de people I meet, Dey saaaaaaay, 'Vot's your name?' And I sa-aaaaay: My name is Yon Yonson...." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: xMNIYY

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My Name's Been Written Down

DESCRIPTION: "How'd you know your name been written down? (x2) On the wall, oh, it's been written down. (x2) Oh, the angel told me, been written down. (x2) Well, the Lord told me, been written down. (x2) Ain't you glad your name been written down. (x2)" Etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1963
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Courlander-NFM, pp. 67-68, (no title) (1 text); pp. 244-245, "My Name's Been Written Down" (1 tune, partial text)
File: CNFM067B

---

My Native Hame

DESCRIPTION: "Far far frae thee my native hame across the mountains high." The singer misses "the heather hills and glens." He would like to return where there are "no black coal pits ... but air aye pure and clear ... where the Ythan water rins"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: homesickness travel mining nonballad home
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan3 523, "My Native Hame" (1 text)
Roud #6005
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Go Bring My Guid Auld Harp Once Mair" (tune, per GreigDuncan3)
File: GrD3523

---

My Native Highland Home

DESCRIPTION: Scotland's winters are harsh but "colder far's the Scotsmans heart" not warmed by the words "My native Highland home." The singer asks his sweetheart to go with him to live in Scotland; he describes the pleasures of Scotland's summer.
AUTHOR: Thomas Morton (source: Morton)
EARLIEST DATE: 1816 (Thomas Morton, _The Slave_, according to John S Dwight, _Dwight's Journal of Music: A Paper of Art and Literature, (Boston, 1877 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. XXXV, p. 316)
KEYWORDS: courting home travel Scotland nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1892, "My Native Highland Home" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Thomas Morton, The Slave; a Musical Drama, in Three Acts, (London, 1818 ("Digitized by Google")), Act I, Sc. i, p. 14, ("My Highland home, where tempests blow")
The Universal Songster or Museum of Mirth (London, 1834 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol I, p. 439, "My Native Highland Home"
Roud #13215
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.17(292), "My Native Highland Home" ("My Highland home, where tempests blow"), W. Armstrong (Liverpool), 1820-1824; also Firth b.26(103), Harding B 12(64), Harding B 17(207a)[3 verses instead of 2], "My Native Highland Home"; Johnson Ballads fol. 20, Harding B 11(342), Harding B 15(215a), "Native Highland Home"; Harding B 19(30) [some words illegible], Firth c.26(101) [some words illegible], Harding B 15(211b), Harding B 11(3761), "My Highland Home"; Johnson Ballads 1330, 2806 c.14(37), 2806 c.17(166), 2806 c.17(165), Harding B 17(128a)[6 verses instead of 2], Harding B 11(1538), "Highland Home"
LOCSinging, sb30301b, "My Highland Home" ("My Highland home, where tempests blow"), H. De Marsan (New York), 1861-1864; also sb20167a, as202540, "My Highland Home"
Murray, Mu23-y1:026, "My Native Highland Home," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C
NOTES: Two of the Bodleian broadsides add to Morton's lines.
Harding B 17(207a)[, "My Native Highland Home" ("My highland home where tempest blow"), J. Wheeler (Manchester), 1827-1847] adds a final verse: "When Charley brave, our scottish king, In the highlands braw was bred, With honor to his country To valiantly he bled, We fought the French at Waterloo, When the thistle on each brow did bloom My cottage maid I sigh in vain, And my sweet highland home."
Harding B 17(128a)["Highland Home" ("My Highland home, where tempest blows"), W. Carse (Glasgow), c.1825] has it that the singer would have Mary accompany him: "My Highland Home, and Mary's love, Is bliss enough for me." He continues with further description of the pleasant spring and summer. "E'en shall thy artless smile dispel The winter's sullen gloom." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81892

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My Old Brown Coat and Me

See The Old Brown Coat (File: R791)

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My Old Hammah

See Take This Hammer (File: FR383)

---

My Old Horse Died

DESCRIPTION: Singer tells of disasters: horse dies, mule goes lame, storm blows house away, earthquake swallows wreckage, land is repossessed. He dies, but wife & kids are comforted, because he was insured with Banker's Life [Insurance Co.]
AUTHOR: Words: advertisement; tune "Chicken Reel" (trad.), set by Dock Boggs
EARLIEST DATE: 1963 (recording, Dock Boggs)
KEYWORDS: death disaster storm humorous family horse animal
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dock Boggs, "My Old Horse Died" (on Boggs1, BoggsCD1)
Roud #11580
NOTES: Does this belong [in the index]? It's certainly narrative, and it has entered the repertoire of old-time revival performers. Toss-up, but I say yes, if only for the novelty of the thing. And most traditional performers were far les picky about including non-traditional material in their performances than their revival heirs. - PJS
And the tune, the Chicken Reel, is worth noting in its own right, although we can't really index a melody. But the Chicken Reel was popular enough that it was actually arranged for piano (by John W. Schaum) and published in a musical series which also includes Mozart, Chopin, and Bach, copyrighted 1946 by Belwin, Inc. Not that there is any chance Boggs would have encounted that. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: RcMOHD

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My Old Kentucky Home

DESCRIPTION: "The sun shines bright on my old Kentucky home; 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay...." The song lists the troubles of the poor tired slave (soon to die? far from home?), "Weep no more, my lady... We will sing one song for the old Kentucky home far away..."
AUTHOR: Stephen C. Foster
EARLIEST DATE: 1853 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: home slave exile age
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Dean, p. 72, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text)
RJackson-19CPop, pp. 134-138, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hill-CivWar, pp. 217-218, "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 246, "My Old Kentucky Home" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 384-385, "My Old Kentucky Home"
DT, KENTYHOM
ST RJ19134 (Full)
Roud #9564
RECORDINGS:
George Alexander, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Oxford 3354, n.d.)
Climax Quartet, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Columbia 512, 1900)
Ford Hanford, "My Old Kentucky Home and Old Black Joe [medley] (Victor 18767, 1921)
Harry Macdonough, "My Old Kentucky Home" (Victor 636, 1900)
Standard Quartette, "My Old Kentucky Home" (CYL: Columbia 2248, rec. 1894)
NOTES: Spaeth (A History of Popular Music in America, p. 114) reports that the text of this song was derived from a poem called "Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night." - RBW
File: RJ19134

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My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night

See My Old Kentucky Home (File: RJ19134)

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My Old Pinto Pal

DESCRIPTION: The singer declares "I'm headin' once more for the prairie;" he longs for and recalls the joys of cowboy life. But his pinto pal is old; he decides to set the tired horse free, for it is "dearer to me than a gal," and "not once have I known you to fail"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1973
KEYWORDS: horse cowboy freedom
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ohrlin-HBT 89, "My Old Pinto Pal" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: Ohr089

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My Old Sow's Nose

See The Sow Took the Measles (File: LoF015)

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My Ole Mistus Promised Me

DESCRIPTION: "My ole mistus promised me When she died she'd set me free." "Good mornin', John. Howdy." "She lived so long her head got bald...." Rest involves her mistreatment: "My old mistus killed a duck, Didn't give me nuffin' but de bone to suck." Etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: slave hardtimes work freedom death age floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
BrownIII 417, "My Ole Mistus Promised Me" (1 text)
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 223-224, "My Ole Mistis" (1 short text, with a "Johnny get de hoecake" chorus, 1 tune); there are sundry related texts with the "My ole mistus/marster" stanza on the nect several pages
Roud #11723
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Raise a Ruckus" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Old Marse John" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Way Down Below" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: The initial stanzas, about the promise of freedom at the owner's death, is common and supplies the heart of several songs. But all seem to be distinguished by their choruses. It is possible that this is one of the elements that went into the Lomax conglomeration "Old Marse John" -- but it's such a kitchen sink that proof is impossible. - RBW
File: Br3417

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My Only Jo and Dearie, O

DESCRIPTION: "Thy cheek is o' the rose's hue." The singer describes his sweetheart. He recalls "when we were bairnies on yon brae" and he would chase her and pull flowers for her. He wishes that they would always be together "till life's warm stream forgat to play"
AUTHOR: Richard Gall (1776-1801) (source: Eyre-Todd)
EARLIEST DATE: 1819 (according to Eyre-Todd)
KEYWORDS: love lyric nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1859, "Your Cheeks Are o' the Roses' Hue" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Allan Cunningham, The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern, (London, 1825 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol II, pp. 28-29, "My Only Jo and Dearie"
Robert Chambers, The Scottish Songs (Edinburgh, 1829), Vol II, p. 271, "My Only Jo and Dearie, O"
George Eyre-Todd, Scottish Poetry of the Eighteenth Century, (Glasgow, 1896 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 332-333, "My Only Jo and Dearie, O"
Roud #13588
NOTES: GreigDuncan8 is a fragment; Chambers is the basis for the description.
Cunningham, 1825: "I remember when this song was exceedingly popular." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81859

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My Own True Handsome Bill

DESCRIPTION: "One evening very lately" the singer meets handsome Bill. They want to marry. She tells him to speak to her father. "Say you are a farmer and that you want a wife and that you dearly love me." Don't dress in Sunday best. Talk about farming and ploughing.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: courting farming father clothes
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 824, "My Own True Handsome Bill" (1 text)
Roud #6215
File: GrD4824

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My Pappy He Will Scold Me

See Chickens They Are Crowing (File: R541)

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My Pappy's Whiskers

See Father's Whiskers (File: FSWB241A)

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My Parents Raised Me Tenderly

See The Girl I Left Behind [Laws P1A/B] (File: LP01)

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My Parents Reared Me Tenderly (I -- The Soldier Boy)

DESCRIPTION: The singer tells how his parents brought him up and sent him to school. He works for a time, but -- influenced by drink -- enlists in the army. He learns the drill, but also finds he will have to serve at least twenty years. He hopes eventually to return
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: soldier drink family money loneliness separation army war
FOUND IN: Ireland Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SHenry H466, pp. 79-80, "My Parents Reared Me Tenderly" (1 short text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 1018-1019, "The Soldier Boy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #8003
NOTES: The first two lines, "My parents reared me tenderly I being their only son But little did they ever think I'd follow the fife and drum", are in common with "The Bold Deserter" and the first line with "The Girl I Left Behind (I)" [Laws P1A/B]. There is no other connection with those ballads. - BS
The reference to serving the Queen found in Peacock (not in the Henry version) forces us to the reign of either Anne (reigned 1702-1714) or Victoria (1837-1901); there was no standing army in the time of Elizabeth.
Enlistment was still for life early in Victoria's reign, but the references to the wars inclines me to think that -- if the reference to serving the Queen is original -- the reign of Anne is meant, since Victoria's reign was relatively peaceful (at least in Europe) while Anne's reign corresponded almost exactly with the War of the Spanish Succession, with British troops in Flanders (mostly under Marlborough) the whole time. - RBW
File: HHH466

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My Parents Reared Me Tenderly (II)

See The Girl I Left Behind [Laws P1A/B] (File: LP01)

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My Peggy and I

DESCRIPTION: "I hae a wee wifie, an' I am her man, My Peggy an' I." They have a daughter: "I am sure she is hers, and I think she is mine," and "when we have siller, we dee best's we can"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: marriage nonballad baby wife
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1275, "My Peggy and I" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7190
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Howes o' Glenarchy" (tune, per GreigDuncan7)
File: GrD71275

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My Ploughman Boy

See The Bonny Sailor Boy [Laws M22] (File: LM22)

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My Pony

DESCRIPTION: "One morning bright and early, so early, so early, My shining boots my pride, Out near Miss Anna's cottage... where she could see me ride." Hoping to impress Anna, the singer spurs his pony, which throws him in the dirt. Anna laughs at him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: courting horse humorous animal
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 464, "My Pony" (1 text)
Roud #7606
File: R464

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My Pretty Little Pink

See Little Pink (File: San166)

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My Pretty Maid (I)

See Seventeen Come Sunday [Laws O17] (File: LO17)

---

My Pretty Maid (II)

See Rolling in the Dew (The Milkmaid) (File: R079)

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My Pretty Quadroon

DESCRIPTION: Singer, a slave, mourns for his lost Cora, "my pretty quadroon." His master had been kind, but coveted Cora, and when the slave grieves, the master sells the singer down the river. He contemplates suicide until he hears the trumpets of the Union army
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (recording, "Beverly Hill Billies")
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer, a slave, mourns for his lost Cora, "my pretty quadroon". His master used to be kind, so much so that the singer "had not...a wish to be free" The master covets Cora, and when the slave tears his hair in grief, the master turns hard, and sells the singer down the river. He contemplates suicide, but hears the trumpets of the Union army and regains hope.
KEYWORDS: hardheartedness sex separation slavery lover Civilwar jealousy
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 79, "My Pretty Quadroon" (1 text)
Roud #4965
RECORDINGS:
Beverly Hill Billies, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Brunswick 441, 1930)
Bud & Joe Billings (Frank Luther & Carson Robison), "My Pretty Quadroon" (Victor V-40282, 1930)
Dixieland Swingsters, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Bluebird B-8109, 1939)
The Happy Chappies, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Columbia 2252-D, 1930)
Jim & Ken, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Champion 16812, 1934; Champion 45074, c. 1935)
Light Crust Doughboys, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Vocalion 02992, 1935)
Carson Robison Trio, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Banner 773/Challenge 785/Conqueror 7593/Jewel 6024/Romeo 1388, 1930) (Broadway 8280, n.d.; Crown 3140, 1931)
Texas Jim Lewis, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Decca 5990, 1941)
Vagabonds, "My Pretty Quadroon" (Victor 23849/Bluevird B-5072/Montgomery Ward M-4307, 1933)
NOTES: In the tortured stratification of racism, a "quadroon" was someone whose ancestry was one-fourth Negro -- hence, someone with fairly light skin, and therefore of high status in the African-American community. This song was enormously popular in minstrel shows and vaudeville, well into the twentieth century. But I can't for the life of me remember the author. - PJS
The description here seems to be that of the original poem, or perhaps a Civil War adaption. As it circulates in oral tradition, however, the details can be lost and it may become a lament simply for a girl lost (perhaps by death). - RBW
File: Be079

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My Ramblin' Boy

DESCRIPTION: The singer recalls the "ramblin' boy" with whom he traveled, who stuck with him in all conditions. On a cold night in a hobo jungle, the ramblin' boy dies. The singer speculates that he will still be rambling in the afterlife
AUTHOR: Tom Paxton
EARLIEST DATE: 1963
KEYWORDS: rambling death friend
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Silber-FSWB, p. 61, "My Ramblin' Boy" (1 text)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Ramblin' Boy
NOTES: Like several other Tom Paxton songs, this has not really entered oral tradition, but it certainly has a strong place in the repertoire of professional folksingers, who ramble more than most. I *have* seen it listed as traditional -- and by people who really should have known better. - RBW
This shouldn't be confused with versions of "Wild and Wicked Youth" that are called "Ramblin' Boy". - PJS
File: FSWB061

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My Rattlin' Oul' Grey Mare

DESCRIPTION: "I am a jolly carter and a jolly good soul am I. I whistle and sing from morn till noon, all troubles I defy." The singer described how "my rattlin' mare and I" work together. He does not overburden the horse, and she does her work well
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: horse work nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan3 456, "The Country Carrier" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
SHenry H664, p. 41, "My Rattlin' Oul' Grey Mare" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1400
File: HHH664

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My Rolling Eye

See Seventeen Come Sunday [Laws O17] (File: LO17)

---

My Sailor Boy (A Sailor Boy in Blue)

DESCRIPTION: "My boy he is a sailor, A sailor boy in blue, I know he has my heart, And I hope he will prove true.... And soon he will return again To his own dear Mary Jane." She describes the gifts her has promised to bring her
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: sailor separation gift love
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SHenry H759, p. 288, "My Sailor Boy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Munnelly/Deasy-Lenihan 49, "My Bonny Boy in Blue" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #5238
RECORDINGS:
Tom Lenihan, "The Bonny Boy in Blue" (on IRTLenihan01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be?" (theme)
NOTES: Sort of a cross between "Sailor on the Deep Blue Sea" and "Oh, Dear, What Can the Matter Be?" - RBW
Munnelly/Deasy-Lenihan 49: "It is possible, even likely, that he [Tom Lenihan] learned it from the American recording of Nan Fitzpatrick which she made when she joined forces with the very popular Frank Quinn. Fn 144: Frank Quinn and Nan Fitzpatrick with violin, banjo and piano accompaniment 'My Bonny Boy in Blue' on Columbia Records, 33477-F. Matrix (w) 113025. 'Connamara Dan' is on the reverse side." - BS
File: HHH759

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My Scolding Wife

See The Scolding Wife (I) (File: R397)

---

My Seventy-Six Geared Wheel

DESCRIPTION: "O how I long for solid roads In the merry month of June ... How jolly I will feel A-spinning down to Rustico On my seventy-six geared wheel." The singer lists his favorite stops on the way to Mary's "big front door" at Rustico.
AUTHOR: Mary Fleming? Ambrose Cosgrove?
EARLIEST DATE: 1965 (Ives-DullCare)
KEYWORDS: courting technology
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Dibblee/Dibblee, pp. 25-26, "My Seventy-Six Geared Wheel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ives-DullCare, pp. 151-152,251, "My Seventy-Six Geared Wheel" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #12477
RECORDINGS:
John O'Connor, "My Seventy-Six Geared Wheel" (on MREIves01)
NOTES: Dibblee/Dibblee: Maybe "seventy-six geared wheel" refers to a geared bicycle built in 1876.
The Rusticos are on the north coast of Queens, Prince Edward Island.
Dibblee/Dibblee claims the author is Mary Fleming, the Mary of the song. Ives-DullCare claims the author is Ambrose Cosgrove.
Ives-DullCare speculates that "seventy-six" "is probably a then-current way of referring to a bike's power (a derivation involving gear-ratio and wheel size, perhaps), Mr Cosgrove is saying that he's riding the last word in bikes.... [The] distance [was] some forty miles, and not all of it first-class highway." - BS
File: Din025

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My Siller's Scarce

DESCRIPTION: "My siller's scarce." The singer lists his current hardships. As for anything substantial, he says, although "I love you well And very dear But you'd better wait Another year"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: love hardtimes nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 921, "My Siller's Scarce" (1 text)
Roud #6241
NOTES: GreigDuncan4 quoting Greig dates the text to a 1819-1820 manuscript valentine, noting that the "city bankruptcy took place then." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD4921

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My Sins Are All Taken Away (I)

See Free at Last (File: FSWB368A)

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My Sins Are All Taken Away (II)

See All My Sins Been Taken Away (File: Ch085)

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My Sister Don't Love Me

DESCRIPTION: "My sister don't love me; She will not take me in Just because I'm teachin' She must live above sin; What need I to fear when Thou art near? Thou carest, Lord, for me." Similarly with mother, brother, and presumably other ungrateful relatives
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Henry, from "Aunt" Martha Hardwick)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad mother brother sister
FOUND IN: US((Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 191, "My Sister Don't Love Me" (1 text)
NOTES: New verse: "My sister don't love me, Because I'm a jerk, Who insists on saying, I know better than you do, And won't listen, Because I've misread the Bible so thoroughly." The only thing I'm sure of about this song is, I don't want to be around anyone who would sing it and mean it!
File: MHAp191

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My Sister She Works in a Laundry

See My God, How the Money Rolls In (File: EM107)

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My Size Is Small

DESCRIPTION: "My size is small, My heart is large, God bless the girls, I love them all."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Henry)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 243, (no title) (1 short text)
File: MHAp243A

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My Son Ted (I)

See Mrs. McGrath (File: MA126)

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My Son Ted (II)

See The Wars of America (File: LoF017)

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My Spinning Wheel

DESCRIPTION: A man accosts the singer while she sits spinning at her wheel. He flatters her and finally convinces her to leave her spinning-wheel and go with him to a hay-cock. She says, "The pleasure I cannot reveal, It far surpast the Spinning-Wheel"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1719 (Pills to Purge Melancholy); 1688? (broadside, Bodleian Douce Ballads 1(19b))
KEYWORDS: sex weaving
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan8 1861, "Jean and her Spinning Wheel" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Wit and Mirth, or, Pills to Purge Melancholy (London, 1719), Vol III, pp. 88-89, ("As I sat at my spinning wheel")
Roud #4255
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Douce Ballads 1(19b), "The Bonny Scot" or "The Yielding Lass" ("As I sat at my spinning-wheel"), J. Walter (London), 1688?
LOCSheet, sm1843 390460, "My Spinning Wheel," A. Fiot (Philadelphia), 1843 (tune)
NOTES: GreigDuncan8 is a fragment; broadside Bodleian Douce Ballads 1(19b) is the basis for the description. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81861

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My Stetson Hat

DESCRIPTION: The singer praises his hat: "Stained with alkali, sand, and mud, Smeared with grease and crimson blood, Battered and bent from constant use, Still you have stood the darned abuse." "You've been a good pal... You dirty old gray Stetson hat."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1935 (Hoofs and Horns)
KEYWORDS: clothes cowboy nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ohrlin-HBT 83, "My Stetson Hat" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Soldier's Joy" (tune)
File: Ohr083

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My Sweet Farm Girl

DESCRIPTION: "My sweet farm girl, she's my joy and pride (x2)." Double-entendre song; singer describes his girlfriend and her abilities to do chores around the farm while the singer "keeps her garden free from bugs and weeds."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1931 (recording, Carolina Tar Heels)
KEYWORDS: sex farming work bawdy nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
RECORDINGS:
Clarence Ashley & Gwen Foster, "My Sweet Farm Girl" (Vocalion 02780/Conqueror 7942, 1934)
Carolina Tar Heels, "Farm Girl Blues" (Victor 23516, 1931)
New Lost City Ramblers, "My Sweet Farm Girl" (on NLCREP3, NLCRCD1)
NOTES: Individually, the verses of this song can be regarded as "clean" -- enough so that I didn't notice the bawdiness on casual hearing. But the overall effect of the song (which may conclude, "She loves her daddy Because I'm long and hard") is very salacious. - RBW
File: RvMSFG

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My Sweet Mary Ann

DESCRIPTION: "She's charming neat and handsome, Her middle ye could span, The only one that entices me Is my sweet Mary Anne"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad beauty
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan5 944, "My Sweet Mary Ann" (1 text)
Roud #6759
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan5 fragment. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD5944

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My Sweetheart Went Down with the Maine

DESCRIPTION: "Once I had a sweetheart, noble, brave, and true... Out on the high seas he sailed... Anchored at Havana... Down went the Maine.... Rouse ye, my countrymen, rouse... Strike down the cowardly fiends Who slaughtered the crew of the Maine."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: disaster ship death love separation
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1895 - Cubans rebel against Spain
Feb 15, 1898 - Explosion of the battleship "Maine" in Havana harbor
April 25, 1898 - Congress declares war on Spain
FOUND IN: US(SE,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Randolph 689, "My Sweetheart Went Down with the Maine" (1 text)
BrownII 236, "The Battleship Maine" (2 texts)
DT, SWTMAINE
Roud #6621
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "On the Shores of Havana" (theme)
cf. "The Spanish War" (theme)
cf. "Manila Bay" (theme)
cf. "Battleship of Maine" (theme)
cf. "Marching to Cuba" (theme)
NOTES: When the Cubans rose in revolt against inept Spanish rule, the U.S. government -- spurred on by William Randolph Hearst's newspapers -- decided it should be involved. The U.S.S. Maine was dispatched to pressure to the Spanish. (The Maine, it should be noted, was not a battleship; originally designed as an armored cruiser, it lacked the coal capacity for that role and wound up as an unsatisfactory battleship/cruiser hybrid.)
When the Maine blew up with a large loss of life, Hearst and his minions pounced quickly. Never mind that the Spanish had nothing to gain from destroying the ship. Never mind that the most likely cause of the disaster was an internal explosion. Spain had to be punished!
The Spanish did all they could to avoid war; after brief delays to save face, they gave in to every American demand. The Americans would have none of it. On April 11, President McKinley asked for a declaration of war; on April 25, he received it. Americans set out to "free" Cuba and the Philippines. (The Philippines, in particular, were so thoroughly "freed" that they soon rose in revolt and did not achieve independence until 1947.) "Remember the Maine," went the battle cry.
The U.S. army was pitifully bad; the vast majority of its losses in the war were caused by disease and supply problems -- but so dreadful were the Spanish forces that by the end of the summer both the Philippines and Cuba were under U.S. control. In December the Spanish were forced to accept the humiliating Treaty of Paris, and the war ended. The U.S. was now an imperialist power -- and all because of songs like this one and Hearst's headlines. - RBW
File: R689

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My Sweetheart's a Mule in the Mines

DESCRIPTION: "My sweetheart's a mule in the mines, I drive her without any lines, On the (bumpers/dasher) I sit and tobacco I spit All over my sweetheart's behind."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927
KEYWORDS: animal mining work humorous
FOUND IN: US(MA)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Lomax-FSNA 65, "My Sweetheart's a Mule" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-AmFolklr, pp. 864-865, "My Sweetheart's the Mule in the Mines" (1 text, 1 tune)
Arnett, p. 127, "My Sweetheart's the Mule in the Mines" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 27, "My Sweetheart's The Mule In The Mines" (1 text)
DT, MYSWEETM*
Roud #4756
RECORDINGS:
Pete Seeger, "My Sweetheart in the Mines" (on PeteSeeger07, PeteSeeger07b)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "My Sweetheart's the Man in the Moon" (tune)
File: LoF065

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My Sweetheart's Dying Words

DESCRIPTION: The dying girl says, "Dear Charlie dear, don't grieve for me... For when I'm dead and leave this world, I'll pray for you and the other girl." Recalling his love, she dies. "Twas then I realized she'd been true." He says he will never marry the other girl
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: love betrayal death
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownII 169, "My Sweetheart's Dying Words" (1 text)
Roud #6581
NOTES: Really smart, Charlie: Betray one, then betray the other because the first one is dead. You sound like a corporate CEO testifying to congress about where the missing ten billion dollars went.... - RBW
File: BrII169

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My Tra-La-La-Lee

DESCRIPTION: In this formula song, the singer successively feels the girl's heel, calf, knee, thigh, etc., has sex, and is told in the last line "Boy, I'm a whore, and you've got the C-L-A-P."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: bawdy whore sex disease
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 126-127, "My Tra-La-La-Lee" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: The melody in its last phrase owes much to "Home on the Range." - EC
File: RL126

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My True Love's Gone A-Sailing

DESCRIPTION: "My true love's gone a-sailing right o'er yon western main"; she promises to remain a maid till he returns, even though his absence leaves her uneasy. An old man comes courting her, but she stays true. She wishes she could see her love
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: love courting separation sailor money age
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
SHenry H160 p. 292, "My True Love's Gone A-Sailing" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #3820
NOTES: This looks very much like a Riley ballad to me, but the confused ending makes it impossible to be certain. - RBW
File: HHH160

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My Warfare Will Soon Be Ended

DESCRIPTION: "My warfare will soon be ended, My trouble is almost done, My warfare is almost ended, And then I am going home." "God bless the holy people, The Presyterian two (?) Those shouting Methodists (?) And the praying Baptists too."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1920 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownII 294, "William Shackleford's Farewell Song As Sung by Shackleford" (1 text)
ST BrII294 (Full)
NOTES: Brown's informant described this as the last words of William S. Shackleford (for whom see the notes on the song with the same title). But it is clearly a generic hymn. Shackleford, a lay preacher, may have sung it at the gallows, but he probably did not originate it; both verses are attested in other religious songs. - RBW
File: BrII294

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My Wedding Day

DESCRIPTION: The singer is sitting at her spinning wheel, watching birds gather nesting material and thinking of "wool and linen I've stored away For Sunday morning's my wedding day." She thinks about her lover and the house, like a nest, where they will live.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1908 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: wedding nonballad home bird
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan5 1065, "My Wedding Day" (1 text)
Roud #6719
File: GrD1065

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My Welcome

See Rye Whiskey; also The Rebel Soldier (File: R405)

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My Wheelie Goes Round

DESCRIPTION: "My wheelie goes round (x2), And my wheelie casts the band, It's not that my wheelie has the wit, It's my uncanny hand."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
GreigDuncan3 475, "Spinning Rhyme" (1 text)
Montgomerie-ScottishNR 173, "(My wheelie goes round)" (1 short text)
Roud #5882
NOTES: It probably goes without saying that this refers to a spinning wheel, not a bicycle or motorcycle or the like -- but I'm saying it just in case. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.4
File: MSNR173

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My Wife Died on Saturday Night

DESCRIPTION: "My wife died on Saturday night, Sunday she was buried, Monday was my courting day, and Tuesday I got married." "Round and round, up and down, everywhere I wander, Round and round, up and down, looking for my honey." That's all, folks.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1918 (Cecil Sharp collection)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage wedding death burial floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Eddy 153 (last of several "fragments of Irish songs" - 1 fragment, which could be this or "The Old Gray Goose (I) (Lookit Yonder)")
SharpAp 202, "A Monday was my Courting Day" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #3619
RECORDINGS:
Dr. Humphrey Bate & his Possum Hunters, "My Wife Died on Saturday Night" (Brunswick 271, 1928)
New Lost City Ramblers, "My Wife Died on Saturday Night" (on NLCR07, NLCRCD2)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Old Gray Goose (I) (Lookit Yonder)" (floating verse)
cf. "Way Down the Old Plank Road" (floating verse)
NOTES: A fragmentary song, really just floating verses and a dance tune. But it's indexed because, compact though it may be, that first verse tells a coherent story. - PJS
This verse, to be sure, is shared with "The Old Gray Goose (I) (Lookit Yonder)." But the rest goes in different directions.
To add to the confusion, there is a nursery rhyme (Baring-Gould-MotherGoose #131, p. 106):
I married a wife on Sunday,
She began to scold on Monday,
Bad was she on Tuesday,
Middling was she on Wednesday,
Worse she was on Thursday,
Dead was she on Friday,
Glad was I on Saturday night,
To bury my wife on Sunday.
To this compare also Opie-Oxford2, #509, p. 410, which begins "Tom married a wife on Sunday, Beat her well on Monday," but the rest almost the same as the Baring-Gould version.
The Baring-Goulds also compare the well-known poem of "Solomon Grundy." - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: RcMWDOSN

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My Wife Went Away and Left Me

DESCRIPTION: Abandoned by his wife, the singer appeals to her to come back. She replies that she will come back "When the grocery man puts sand in the sugar, The milkman makes milk out of chalk, Boys stay home with their mothers...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Kelly Harrell)
KEYWORDS: love abandonment humorous husband wife
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Rorrer, p. 78, "My Wife Went Away and Left Me" (1 text)
Roud #3686
RECORDINGS:
Kelly Harrell, "My Wife Went Away and Left Me" (Victor 21520, 1927; on KHarrell02)
Charlie Poole and the North Carolina Ramblers, "My Wife Went Away and Left Me" (Columbia 15584-D, 1930; rec. 1928; on CPoole03)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Things Impossible" (lyrics)
NOTES: Rorrer reports that this song bears similarities to a song by Charles D. Vann called "Then My Darling I'll Come Back to Thee." It is not clear whether they are the same song, though, or whether that song merely influenced this.
There are several sourthern versions of this song, and there is an English song with common lyrics, "Things Impossible." These two are surely derived from the same original, but the setting is different; the English song is an appeal to marry, the American a plea to a woman to reunite with her ex-love. Possibly Vann rewrote the English text and created the popular American version. I separate them; Roud lumps them. - RBW
File: RcMWWALM

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My Wife's a Wanton Wee Thing

DESCRIPTION: The singer complained that his wife "winna be guided by me." She had affairs before they married and he is sure she'll do that again. She sold her coat to buy drink. Finally he beat her and she's been "a braw guide bairn" since.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1776 (Herd)
KEYWORDS: infidelity violence drink husband wife clothes
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
GreigDuncan7 1295A, "My Wife's a Wallopin Wee Thing" (1 text, 2 tunes)
ADDITIONAL: David Herd, editor, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. (Edinburgh, 1870 (reprint of 1776)), Vol II, p. 230, ("My Wife's a Wanton Wee Thing")
Robert Chambers, The Scottish Songs (Edinburgh, 1829), Vol II, pp. 334-335, "My Wife's a Wanton Wee Thing"
Roud #5659
File: GrD71295

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My Wifie Winna Dee

DESCRIPTION: The singer complains that his wife won't die. Rather, "she'll live an' anger me"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: shrewishness nonballad husband wife
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan7 1294, GreigDuncan8 Addenda, "My Wifie Winna Dee" (2 texts, 3 tunes)
Roud #7195
File: GrD71294

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My Worry Sure Carryin' Me Down

DESCRIPTION: Opening recitation describes the singer's hard life in prison. The song begins with the lament, "Lord, my worry sure carryin' me down... Sometimes I feel like, baby, committin' suicide." The singer is failing, "goin' down slow, somethin; wrong with me."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1963
KEYWORDS: prison hardtimes loneliness disease suicide nonballad
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Courlander-NFM, pp. 133-135, (no title) (1 text, 1 tune)
File: CNFM133

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My Yallow Gal

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, my daddy was a fool about a yallow gal." "God knows I'm a fool about a yallow gal." The singer describes the various things (walking, talking, having sex), but the consistent result is "I didn' get nothin' from my yallow gal"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Lomax)
KEYWORDS: love courting sex
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 245-246, "My Yallow Gal" (1 text, 1 tune)
Jackson-DeadMan, pp. 285-287, "Yelllow Gal" (1 text, 1 tune, plus mention of four more)
Roud #11657
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Yaller Gal" (theme)
File: LxA245

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My Young Love Said to Me

See She Moved Through the Fair (Our Wedding Day) (File: K165)

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My Youthful Days

DESCRIPTION: "My youthful days I freely wasted In drinking brandy and such pastime, And other joys which I have tasted Have made me sail to a foreign clime"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Creighton-SNewBrunswick)
KEYWORDS: drink travel exile
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 105, "My Youthful Days" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #2780
NOTES: The current description is all of the Creighton-SNewBrunswick fragment. - BS
File: CrSNB105

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Na Leannain Bhriotacha (The Stuttering Lovers)

DESCRIPTION: Birds fly into a poor man's corn. His daughter follows. A fisherman's son follows her. They kiss. The poor old man finds them: "If that's the way ye're minding the corn I'll mind it myself in the morn"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (sheet music "arranged by Herbert Hughes," according to Bruce Olsen)
KEYWORDS: courting humorous bird father farming
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OLochlainn-More 12, "The Stuttering Lovers" (1 text, 1 tune); 12A, "Na Leannain Bhriotacha" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9669
RECORDINGS:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, "The Stuttering Lovers" (on IRClancyMakem02)
NOTES: OLochlainn-More: Translated as "Na Leannain Bhriotacha" to Gaelic by Father Tomas O Ceallaigh.
The fourth line of each verse mimics stuttering (for example, "I'll mind it myself in the m-m-m-m-m-morn"). The effect is preserved in the Gaelic (for example, "Rachad na bhfiel me f-f-f-f-fein")
IRClancyMakem02 cover notes: "'The Stuttering Lovers' ... was collected and arranged by Herbert Hughes."
John Moulden pointed me to the late Bruce Olsen's Roots of Folk website which has been moving and I can no longer find. Fortunately John quoted a good part of the reference. He pins down the IRClancyMakem02 reference for Hughes to 1906 sheet music. Olsen then refers, for a source, to "English MS Harleian 6057, c 1632." No stuttering in this version, but the same repetition pattern. The birds fly into the corn. "The little boy ...spiede his dame In the middle of all the green and kisses her. "'It's enough to tempt a woman,' quote she, 'That never knew man before." The old man finds them making love, chases the boy away, and he'll keep the birds to himself tomorrow. - BS
File: OLcM012

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Nabob, The

DESCRIPTION: "When silent time, wi' lightly feet, Had trod on thirty years, I sought again my native land Wi' mony hopes and fears." The singer finds a new generation in the land; all is changed. He misses the old, asking the forgiveness of his old friends' children
AUTHOR: Susanna Blamire (1747-1794)
EARLIEST DATE: 1824 (Smith, _The Scottish Minstrel_, according to GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: age return home
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Greig #5, p. 2, ("When silent time, wi' lightly foot") (1 text)
GreigDuncan3 538, "The Nabob" (5 texts, 4 tunes)
Ord, pp. 361-362, "The Nabob" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Robert Chambers, Cyclopaedia of English Literature (Boston, 1851 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol II, pp. 275-276, "The Nabob"
Roud #4592
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, 2806 c.14(125), "Traveller's Return" ("When silent time wi' lightly foot"), unknown, no date
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.178.A.2(215), "Traveller's Return," unknown, c.1840
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Traveller's Return
Auld Lang Syne
Silent Time
File: Ord361

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Nach Mbonin Shin Do

DESCRIPTION: There is no money this year "but we'll drink all we earn, and we'll pay what we owe." "The gentry who fed upon pheasants and wine" will be reduced to eating what we eat. If the markets improve "every stout farmer will draw the long bow"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1891 (OLochlainn-More)
KEYWORDS: hardtimes Ireland nonballad patriotic food money
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
OLochlainn-More 49, "Nach Mbonin Shin Do" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #9765
File: OLcM049

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Nachul-Born Easman

See Casey Jones (I) [Laws G1] (File: LG01)

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Nae Bonnie Laddie tae Tak' Me Away (I)

DESCRIPTION: "My name it is (Jean) and my age is (fifteen)... Yet there's nae bonnie laddie tae tak me awa." The girl describes her clothes and her good dowry, but confesses to having no luck in seeking a man
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Ford)
KEYWORDS: loneliness courting
FOUND IN: Ireland Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
SHenry H230, p. 255, "Nae Bonnie Laddie tae Tak' Me Away'" (1 composite text, 1 tune)
Ford-Vagabond, pp. 315-317, "Nae Bonnie Laddie Will Tak Me Awa'" (1 text, 1 tune)
Montgomerie-ScottishNR 102, "(Queen Mary, Queen Mary, my age is sixteen)" (1 short text, which despite the first line appears more likely to be this piece)
Roud #895
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Queen Mary (Auld Maid's Lament)" (lyrics, theme)
NOTES: Ford has anecdotal evidence that this was written by Thomas Scott of Falkirk. If this be true, the song has surely wandered far, becoming little more than a singing game in some of the more corrupt versions.
For the vexed relationship between this song and "Queen Mary (Auld Maid's Lament)," with which it shares much, see the notes to that song. - RBW
File: HHH230A

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Nae Bonnie Laddie tae Tak' Me Away (II)

See Queen Mary (Auld Maid's Lament) (File: HHH230)

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Nae Bonnie Laddie Wad Tak Her Awa

See The Lass's Wardrobe (File: GrD71372)

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Nae Bonnie Laddie Will Tak Me Awa'

See Nae Bonnie Laddie tae Tak' Me Away; also Queen Mary (Auld Maid's Lament) (File: HHH230A)

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Naebody Comin' to Marry Me

See My Father's a Hedger and Ditcher (Nobody Coming to Marry Me) (File: BrII185)

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Nails

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, this world is like a bag of nails and some are very queer ones...." The singer describes the world in terms of nails: "The doctor nails you with a bill"; "the undertaker wishes you as dead as any doornail...."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1838 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 28(204))
KEYWORDS: work
FOUND IN: Australia Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
OLochlainn-More 96, "The Bag of Nails" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 182-183, "Nails" (1 text, 1 tune)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 28(204), "The Bag of Nails," W. Wright (Birmingham), 1831-1837; also Firth b.26(28) View 2 of 2, "The Bag of Nails"
File: FaE182

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Nairn River Banks

DESCRIPTION: The singer wanders by Nairn River banks, where he sees a pretty girl herding her flock and lamenting her soldier. A boy brings her a letter from him, saying he is fighting the French in Spain with Wellington, but hopes to come back to her soon
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan1)
KEYWORDS: love separation soldier Spain
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1809 - Wellington takes command in the Peninsula (to 1814)
1815 - Battle of Waterloo
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig #28, p. 1, "Nairn's River Banks" (1 text)
GreigDuncan1 92, "Nairn's River Banks" (14 texts, 10 tunes)
Ord, pp. 314-315, "Nairn River Banks" (1 text)
Roud #3780
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Jock Scott" (tune, per GreigDuncan6)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Nairn's Bonny Banks
The Banks o' Nairn
The Water o' Nairn
NOTES: Ord calls this a "real Bothy Song," though he admits that it is found in broadsides. But the texts generally seem to be in very exact, even flowery, English, with not a hint of dialect; I have to think it is in origin a broadside, and the traditional versions close to the original. - RBW
One of Greig's correspondents said the song was "written by a Mr Gordon, whose widow was living in Nairn some 30 or 40 years ago." (1908) - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Ord314

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Nairn's River Banks

See Nairn River Banks (File: Ord314)

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Name the Boy Dennis Or No Name At All

See I'll Name the Boy Dennis, Or No Name At All (File: Dean034)

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Nancy

See under The British Grenadiers (File: Log109)

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Nancy (I) [Laws P11]

DESCRIPTION: The singer offers Nancy his love while confessing his lack of wealth. She is not interested. By the time she changes her mind he has found another love. Nancy warns others against her mistake
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Karpeles-Newfoundland)
KEYWORDS: poverty courting rejection
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar,Newf)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Laws P11, "Nancy I"
Creighton/Senior, pp. 189-190, "Nancy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Karpeles-Newfoundland 60, "Proud Nancy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manny/Wilson 77, "Jenny Dear" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 733, DRNANCY*
Roud #1002
RECORDINGS:
Marie Hare, "Jenny Dear" (on MRMHare01)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Rejected Lover" [Laws P10] and references there
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Dearest Nancy
File: LP11

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Nancy (II) (The Rambling Beauty) [Laws P12]

DESCRIPTION: Nancy rejects the singer's offer of marriage. He expresses the wish that her marriage be troubled. His wish comes true; her husband ignores her. Years later, having grown rich, he rubs it in by giving the now-poor girl money. She regrets her error
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: marriage curse poverty rejection
FOUND IN: US(MW,SE,So) Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Laws P12, "Nancy (II) (The Rambling Beauty)"
Belden, pp. 191-193, "The Rambling Beauty" (3 texts)
SharpAp 163, "Loving Nancy" (2 texts, 2 tunes)
Gardner/Chickering 34, "False Nancy" (1 text, perhaps mixed with "The Banks of Sweet Primroses")
Greig #142, p. 2, "The Rambling Beauty" (1 text)
GreigDuncan6 1213, "The Rambling Beauty" (6 texts, 2 tunes)
Ord, pp. 176-177, "The Rambling Beauty" (1 text)
DT 496, LVNGNANC
ST LP12 (Full)
Roud #563
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Rejected Lover" [Laws P10] and references there
cf. "False Mallie" (tune, per Greig)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Merchant's Daughter
A Farmer's Daughter
NOTES: This is rather a difficult item, because the family is so fractured. Laws lists neither the Ord nor the Gardner/Chickering text with his piece, and indeed the various texts have few words in common. But the plot is the same, and Laws allows both the Ord and Gardner/Chickering titles. So here they are. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: LP12

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Nancy B, The

DESCRIPTION: Recitation; the speaker, tired of lumber camps, signs on as cook of the lumber ship "Nancy B." They anchor in the bay. After only one lighter load, however, a storm comes up. The storm last 16 days; it's cold and hard to cook, but no one complains.
AUTHOR: Probably Marion Ellsworth
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Beck)
KEYWORDS: work cook sailor ship recitation storm
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 102, "The 'Nancy B'" (1 text)
Roud #8883
NOTES: This, like the other pieces probably written by Ellsworth, does not seem to have entered oral tradition. - PJS
File: Be102

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Nancy Dawson

DESCRIPTION: "There lived a lass in yonder glen, Wham auld and young did brawly ken." Nancy Dawson's parents would wed her to "the laird o Mucklegear," ancient Bauldy Lawson. She loves a young man; the wedding is set, but she flees with her love
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1904 (Ford)
KEYWORDS: lover courting age beauty elopement abandonment
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ford-Vagabond, pp. 71-75, "Nancy Dawson" (1 text)
GreigDuncan5 1028, "Nancy Dawson" (1 text)
Roud #6717
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "John of Hazelgreen [Child 293]" (plot)
cf. "Lady Jean" (plot)
NOTES: There is a (feeble) poem by Herbert P. Horne called "Nancy Dawson"; they are unrelated. It may be that this piece inspired that, however; at least, the name "Nancy Dawson" was well enough known that one of the ships involved in the Franklin search was named Nancy Dawson. And it can't be named after the Horne poem; Horne wasn't born until 1864.
Linscott says that "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" and "Gathering Nuts in May" use the tune "Nancy Dawson." That does not appear to be this song; though no tune seems to have been recorded, the stanza forms don't match. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: FVS071

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Nancy from London (I)

See Pretty Nancy of London (Jolly Sailors Bold) (File: R078)

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Nancy from London (II)

See William and Nancy (II) (Courting Too Slow) [Laws P5] (File: LP05)

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Nancy Lee

DESCRIPTION: "Of all the wives as e'er you know. Yeo ho! Lads, ho! ... There's one like Nancy Lee, I know..." Chorus: " The sailor's wife the sailor's star shall be, Yeo ho! We go across the sea." Composed song in which a sailor sings the praises of his wife.
AUTHOR: Frederic Edward Weatherly (1848-1929)/Tune: Stephen Adams (a.k.a. Michael Maybrick)
EARLIEST DATE: 188? (composed); 1948 (Shay)
KEYWORDS: wife husband separation sailor nonballad love
FOUND IN: Britain US
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Harlow, pp. 159-161, "Nancy Lee" (1 text, 1 tune)
Shay-SeaSongs, pp. 170-171, "Nancy Lee" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST ShaSS170 (Partial)
Roud #5014
NOTES: Adams and Weatherly were a very successful British songwriting team during the 1880s & 90s. Stephen Adams's real name was Michael Maybrick, and he was brother to James Maybrick, one of the favorite contenders for having been Jack the Ripper. - SL
For Weatherly, the reputed author of "Danny Boy," see the notes to that song. - RBW
File: ShaSS170

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Nancy of Yarmouth (Jemmy and Nancy; The Barbadoes Lady) [Laws M38]

DESCRIPTION: Nancy's father does not want her to marry Jimmy. He is persuaded to allow them to marry AFTER Jimmy completes a voyage. On his way he breaks a lady's heart and is murdered by a man hired by Nancy's father. His ghost reveals the truth, and Nancy dies
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1818 (Garret, _Merrie Book of Garlands, vol. ii_)
KEYWORDS: murder courting ghost sailor
FOUND IN: US(SE) Canada(Mar,Newf) Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Laws M38, "Nancy of Yarmouth (Jemmy and Nancy; The Barbadoes Lady) [Laws M38]"
GreigDuncan2 222, "Jamie and Nancy of Yarmouth" (3 texts, 3 tunes)
BrownII 61, "Nancy of Yarmouth" (1 text)
SharpAp 63, "Pretty Nancy of Yarmouth" (1 text, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 682-686, "Jimmy and Nancy" (1 text, 1 tune)
Creighton-NovaScotia 41, "Jimmie and Nancy" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 437, JIMNANCY
Roud #187
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Chowan River" (plot)
File: LM38

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Nancy Till

DESCRIPTION: "Down in the cane brake close by the mill" lives pretty Nancy Till. The singer goes to serenade her, asking her to come along; "I'll row the boat while the boat rows me." When they part, he bids her to be ready the next time he arrives in the boat
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1915 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: love courting ship river
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 409, "Nancy Till" (1 text plus a fragment and mention of 1 more)
Roud #2836
RECORDINGS:
Eleazar Tillet, "Come Love Come" (on USWarnerColl01) [a true mess; the first verse is "Nancy Till", the chorus is "Come, Love, Come, the Boat Lies Low," and it uses part of "De Boatman Dance" as a bridge.)
File: Br409

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Nancy Varnon

DESCRIPTION: "Between Lochiel and Gowrie, I met a fair maid by the way; I steppid up unto her, and unto her this word did say." "She's my darling Nancy Varlin, She's my darling goes to and fro"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1905 (GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: courting
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 738, "Nancy Varnon" (2 fragments, 2 tunes)
Roud #6170
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Planxty Nancy Vernon" (tune by O'Carolan as far as the fragment 738A goes)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Nancy Varlin
Nancy Vernon
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan4 fragments.
GreigDuncan4 quoting Duncan: "This song also [like 'Mairins Gibberlin' from Mrs Gillespie] is understood to be distinctly indelicate." - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD4738

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Nancy Whisky

DESCRIPTION: The weaver sets out to sample the pleasures of drink and a roving life. After extensive drinking, he finds himself broke and despised. He vows to return to weaving, and warns others of the evil of drink
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1907
KEYWORDS: drink poverty weaving warning
FOUND IN: Britain(England(Lond,South),Scotland(Aber)) Ireland
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Greig #90, p. 1, "The Dublin Weaver" (1 text)
GreigDuncan3 603, GreigDuncan8 Addenda, "Nancy Whisky" (9 texts, 7 tunes)
Kennedy 279, "Nancy Whisky" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H745, pp. 47-48, "Long Cookstown/Nancy Whiskey" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ord, pp. 372-373, "The Calton Weaver" (1 text)
Silber-FSWB, p. 234, "The Calton Weaver" (1 text)
DT, CALTONWV
Roud #883
BROADSIDES:
NLScotland, RB.m.143(125), "Nancy Whisky," Poet's Box (Dundee), c.1880-1900
SAME TUNE:
It's Very Strange (per broadside NLScotland, RB.m.143(125))
ALTERNATE TITLES:
I Am a Weaver
NOTES: One title for this song is "The Calton Weaver"; Calton was a village, swallowed up by Glasgow in the early 20th century. - PJS
Also collected and sung by Ellen Mitchell, "The Carlton Weaver" (on Kevin and Ellen Mitchell, "Have a Drop Mair," Musical Tradition Records MTCD315-6 CD (2001)).
GreigDuncan3: "Greig prints a composite text ...." - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: K279

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Nancy, the Pride of the West

DESCRIPTION: "We have dark lovely looks on the shores where the Spanish From their gay ships came gallantly forth...." The singer praises Nancy's beauty, her sighs, her laugh, her everything, and says that she holds a thousand in thrall
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1901 (OConor); we have a parody before 1820 (broadside, Bodleian Firth c.18(188))
KEYWORDS: beauty nonballad
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SHenry H495, pp. 227-228, "Nancy, the Pride of the West" (1 text, 1 tune)
O'Conor, p. 150, "Nancy, the Pride of the West" (1 text)
Roud #7977
NOTES: It gives me a certain amount of pleasure to note that this odious piece probably isn't traditional in origin or, very likely, survival. The evidence of its composed nature comes from several references:
The "shores where the Spanish... came forth": Presumably a reference to the ships of the Spanish Armada, many of which were wrecked in Ireland, generally off the northwest coast (the number is given by David Howarth, The Voyage of the Armada, p. 210, as 26). Few of these Spaniards survived long. (There were later instances of Spanish in Ireland, notably at the battle of Kinsale in 1601 -- but Kinsale was in the south, and this is a song about "the pride of the West.")
"The statue the Greek fell in love with": Clearly a reference to Pygmalion and Galatea (Ovid, Metamorphoses, X.254 and following.) - RBW
Bodleian Library site Ballads Catalogue has no copies of "Nancy, the Pride of the West" but has a parody: Bodleian, Firth c.18(188), "Nancy, the Pride of the East," J. Pitts (London), 1802-1819; also Harding B 11(1206), Harding B 15(212b), 2806 c.8(177), Harding B 11(3796), 2806 c.18(217), "Nancy, the Pride of the East."
This Nancy has "eyes ... like rubies so fine" and leaves the East "For Jemmy is the boy I adore ... He is the pride of the North Country" - BS
File: HHH495

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Nancy's Courtship

See Two Lovers Discoursing [Laws O22] (File: LO22)

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Nanny That Lives Next Door

DESCRIPTION: The singer takes Nan next door to "a wild beast show" where she is almost killed by a bear: it gets only the false bun of her hair. He proposes. She would prefer a man to a lad. He says he'd be her lad first and then her man. He's been happy with her.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1886 (broadside "Nanny That Leeves Next Door," Poet's Box (Glasgow), according to GreigDuncan4)
KEYWORDS: courting escape hair humorous animal
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan4 884, "Nanny That Lives Next Door" (2 texts)
Roud #6137
NOTES: This may not seem "humorous" but the intent is clearer from the chorus: "For she stole my heart while sittin and knittin' The time that I sat smokin' and spittin' And ever sin syne my heart's been a flittin' For Nannie that lives next door" (GreigDuncan4 884A). - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD3884

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Nantucket Lullaby

DESCRIPTION: "Hush, the waves are rolling in, White with foam, white with foam, Father toils amid the din, While baby sleeps at home." "Hush, the ship rides in the gale... Father seeks the roving whale...." "... Mother now the watch will keep..."
AUTHOR: Words: unknown / Music: Lucy Allison
EARLIEST DATE: 1943
KEYWORDS: lullaby sailor mother father whaler
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Botkin-NEFolklr, p. 571, "Nantucket Lullaby" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: BNEF571

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Nantucket P'int

See Nantucket Point (File: Harl191)

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Nantucket Point

DESCRIPTION: "Uncle Josiah and old Uncle Sam, they built them a sloop in the shape of a clam." The sloop is finished and launched but they find that they can't sail her. After much trouble they get the boat moored and swear they won't build any more.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1945 (Harlow)
KEYWORDS: ship humorous
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Harlow, pp. 191-192, "Nantucket P'int" (1 text)
NOTES: The idea of a ship in the shape of a clam (which I assume means relatively circular and with a smooth, shallow bottom) isn't as ridiculous as it sounds. It has been done -- admittedly with mixed success. In the 1870s, the Russian admiral Andrei Aleksandrovic Popov designed the "Popovkas" (or "Popoffkas") -- battleships (eventually named the Novgorod and Admiral Popov) with circular hulls for maximum stability as gun platforms. Paine, p. 424, says they worked well enough, but Humble, p. 41, reports they could only be steered into a current: "They spun like tops when coming downstream and their decks were flooded by the slightest seaway."
A later vessel, elliptical rather than actually circular, proved better. Fritdjov Nansen's Fram, built in the early 1890s, was designed for polar exploration; Nansen and Sverdrup used her to make what amounted to a Northeast Passage (see, e.g., Berton, pp. 489-498, especially p. 495), and Amundsen later took her to the Antarctic. But the honest truth was, she wasn't much good for ordinary sailing; her round sides and rounded bottom were designed to keep her from being crushed by ice, and made her very slow (her top speed under steam, according to Paine, p. 190, was seven knots) and almost useless for other tasks. She ended up in a museum, but it appears no other ships like her were ever ever constructed. - RBW
Bibliography

• Berton: Pierre Berton, The Arctic Grail:The Quest for the north West Passage and the NorthPole, 1818-1909, Viking, 1988
• Humble: Richard Humble, Battleships and Battlecruisers, Chartwell, 1983
• Paine: Lincoln P. Paine, Ships of the World: An Historical Encylopedia, Houghton Mifflin, 1997

Last updated in version 2.5
File: Harl191

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Nantucket Skipper, The

See The Alarmed Skipper (The Nantucket Skipper) (File: ShaSS198)

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Naomi Wise [Laws F31]

DESCRIPTION: (John Lewis) takes Naomi for a ride and throws her in the river. When her body is found, he is arrested but not convicted. He confesses to the murder only on his deathbed
AUTHOR: Carson J. Robison
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (recording, Vernon Dalhart)
KEYWORDS: murder river gallows-confession
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1808 - Drowning of Naomi Wise in North Carolina
FOUND IN: US(Ap,SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Laws F31, "Naomi Wise"
Eddy 94, "Poor Omie (Leoma Wise)" (1 text, 1 tune) (apparently; Laws does not list Eddy's text with either Naomi Wise ballad, but the pattern fits this one)
BrownII 300, "Poor Naomi (Omie Wise)" (5 texts plus 1 excerpt and mention of 2 more; it appears that Laws places text "F" here, but "G" is also this song, with "A," "D," and "H" being "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise)" [Laws F4])
DT 730, NAOMIWIS
Roud #981
RECORDINGS:
Vernon Dalhart & Co., "Naomi Wise" (Edison 51669, 1925) (Columbia 15053-D [as Al Craver], 1926; rec. 1925) (Silvertone 27351926)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Poor Omie (John Lewis) (Little Omie Wise)" [Laws F4] (plot)
File: LF31

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Napan Heroes, The

DESCRIPTION: Twenty-five shantymen watch a fight between Robert Sweezey and Frank Russell. After an hour "a poke in the stomach" makes Russell give in. Sweezy "conquered the champion from old Point Carr. He's the true Napan hero."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1948 (Manny/Wilson)
KEYWORDS: fight sports logger derivative
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Ives-NewBrunswick, pp. 61-62, "The Napan Heroes" (1 text, 1 tune)
Manny/Wilson 36, "The Napan Heroes" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST IvNB061 (Partial)
Roud #1946
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Morrissey and the Black" (theme)
cf. "Twickenham Ferry" (tune)
cf. "Squid Jiggin' Ground" (tune)
NOTES: Ives-NewBrunswick: This is a parody of "Morrissey and the Black." "According to Louise Manny, the fight took place in 1889 and the casus belli was the love of a woman who later married neither combatant." - BS
Manny and Wilson in fact states that the fight took place "about 1889," and describe the tune as "Twickenham Ferry"/"The Squid Jiggin' Ground." - RBW
File: IvNB061

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Napoleon

See Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena) (File: E096)

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Napoleon Bonaparte

See Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena) (File: E096)

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Napoleon Bonaparte (II)

See Napoleon's Farewell to Paris (File: GC089)

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Napoleon Bonaparte (III)

DESCRIPTION: "The deeds of famed Napoleon I mean for to relate ... led astray ... Grouchy led the French astray And the great battle of Waterloo was bought with English gold." Having been betrayed by Grouchy Napoleon is banished to St Helena and Louisa laments.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1957 (Ives-NewBrunswick)
KEYWORDS: war exile betrayal Napoleon
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
June 18, 1815 - Battle of Waterloo
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar) Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ives-NewBrunswick, pp. 42-45, "Napoleon Bonaparte" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1943
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wheels of the World" (for the charge that Grouchy betrayed Napoleon)
cf. "The Removal of Napoleon's Ashes" (for the charge that Grouchy betrayed Napoleon)
NOTES: Ives-NewBrunswick: Other pieces "have the Little Corporal as their hero, [this one] is different in having a true villain, the Marquis de Grouchy, the marshall who failed to keep Blucher from joining up with Wellington at Waterloo." - BS
One suspects broadside origin for this piece, from someone who needed a scapegoat for Napoleon. While the behavior of Emmanuel Grouchy (1766-1847) helped lose Waterloo, he certainly didn't betray Napoleon! His competence can be questioned, but not his loyalty.
Primarily a cavalry officer, Grouchy served well in small roles in Napoleon's first career. Quick to return to Bonaparte's service during the Hundred Days, he was rewarded with a Marshal's baton (the last of Napoleon's Marshals) -- and given command of a third of the army in the Waterloo campaign.
This was a mistake; Grouchy had little infantry experience, and no experience with forces so large (two corps and change). His appointment was one of several organizational mistakes that cost Napoleon dearly at Waterloo.
Napoleon's plan for the Waterloo campaign was brilliant: Two armies, Wellington's (British and Dutch) and Blucher's (Prussian), were concentrating against him. Individually, they were smaller than Napoleon's cobbled-up force, but together, they were far larger. Napoleon divided his army into three parts, under Ney, Grouchy, and his own direct command. He interposed them between Wellington and Blucher, and proposed to defeat them in detail.
There were actually three battles involved: Ligny and Quatre Bras on June 16, and Waterloo on June 18. At Quatre Bras, Ney was supposed to attack Wellington's rearguard, while Grouchy and Napoleon attacked Blucher at Ligny.
Grouchy's performance at Ligny was competent enough; the Prussians were forced to retreat. But Ney completely muffed the attack at Quatre Bras, first failing to attack when the odds were with him, then going in after the small local force was reinforced. This got him in enough trouble that he took control of d'Erlon's corps, which Napoleon had called upon to polish off the victory at Ligny, and hauled it back to Quatre Bras. Where it didn't fight.
This was disastrous. Napoleon turned his own and Ney's forced to attack Wellington at Waterloo, leaving Grouchy to watch Blucher -- but Blucher had merely been pushed back a few miles. He halted the retreat, marched around Grouchy, and managed to bring up enough of his army to turn the tide at Waterloo.
Grouchy's performance was certainly poor; he lost contact with Blucher, and then just sat rather than trying to find a battle to fight. He did, nonetheless, obey his orders, if woodenly. While his behavior cost Napoleon his last chance to survive at Waterloo, the fundamental fault is Napoleon's for setting up very bad command arrangements -- and, tactically, the fault is almost entirely Ney's (who, indeed, gets the blame in "The Grand Conversation on Napoleon," which see): He messed up at Quatre Bras, he made it impossible to win at Ligny, and he was in tactical charge at Waterloo but delayed so long that Blucher had time to come up. - RBW
The ballad is recorded on one of the CD's issued around the time of the bicentenial of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. See:
Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "Napoleon Bonaparte" (on Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte," Hummingbird Records HBCD0027 (2001))
Harte: "This particular song was written almost fifteen years after the death of Napoleon [1821]." - BS
File: IvNB042

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Napoleon Bonaparte (IV)

See The Removal of Napoleon's Ashes (File: Moyl206)

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Napoleon Is the Boy for Kicking Up a Row

DESCRIPTION: Hard times now but "money was plenty as paving stones In the days of General Bonaparte." He far exceeded past great warriors. He returned from Elba but was murdered on St Helena. "But his nephew's on the throne of France"; maybe he will make England pay.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1865 (broadside Bodleian, Firth c.16(85))
KEYWORDS: war murder commerce death Napoleon France royalty revenge
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Moylan 199, "Napoleon Is the Boy for Kicking Up a Row" (1 text)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.16(85), "Napoleon is the Boy for Kicking up a Row" ("Arrah, murther, but times is hard"), The Poet's Box (Glasgow), 1865
NOTES: Napoleon's "nephew's on the throne of France": Napoleon III[1808-1873; president 1848-1852; emperor 1852-1870] was the son of Napoleon's stepdaughter and, nominally, his brother Louis Bonaparte. (source: "Napoleon III of France" at the Wikipedia site).
This ballad claims Napoleon "was sent off to a barren isle, Where he was murdered and ill-treated." Apparently the thought that Napoleon was poisoned is older than the speculation of the past fifty years that he was poisoned intentionally (possibly). (see, for example "Arsenic poisoning and Napoleon's death" by Hendrik Ball at the Victorian Web site).
Moylan p. 151: "Times were good during the Napoleonic era as the war effort generated massive demand for goods and services in Ireland. An economic slump ensued after Napoleon's defeat as the war machine was wound down and armies were demobilized." This is like the lines from "The Grand Conversation on Napoleon": "Napoleon he was a friend to heroes, both young and old, He caus'd the money for to fly wherever he did go." Here also is the main theme of "The Grand Conversation Under the Rose": "Come stir up the wars, and our trade will be flourishing." - BS
It's worth remembering that Napoleon poisoned *himself* -- he tried to commit suicide on April 13, 1814, as the allies closed in on Paris (see Alan Schom, One Hundred Days, pp. 2-3). Obviously, he failed -- but he was physically never the same. And he died of what may have been stomach cancer -- the sort of thing that, at the time, could easily have been blamed on poison.
Napoleon did have elevated levels of arsenic in his body when he died (though this was not established until recently, based on neutron activation analysis of his hair). This need not have been the result of poison, however, it turns out his wallpaper contained heavy doses of arsenic in the pigment (see John Emsley, Nature's Building Blocks, p. 46).
Saint Helena certainly qualifies as barren; according to the 2001 Statesman's Yearbook, it didn't even become a British colony until 1834, more than a decade after Napoleon's death. Even now,the population is less than 10,000, and the lone town, Jamestown, has only about 3000.
The alleged good times during the war with Napoleon are more weak memory than anything else; the British government nearly spent itself into the ground, the economy was weak (see "Ye Tyrants of England," e.g., where the people are promised an improved economy once Napoleon is gone), and if times were so good in Ireland, why was there a rebellion in 1798? The one thing Napoleon did was siphon off Irish youths of military age.
Napoleon III certainly wanted to enhance French power at British expense, but he didn't have much nerve. In the Crimean War, he allied with England against Russia. In the American Civil War, he is said to have wanted to support the Confederacy, but was unwilling to do so without British support -- and the British were too cautious (and their millworkers too anti-slavery). Ultimately, Napoleon III ended up dying in England, having done much to strengthen the British Empire despite himself. - RBW
File: Moyl199

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Napoleon Song

See Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena) (File: E096)

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Napoleon the Brave

DESCRIPTION: "Napoleon is no more, the French did him adore." His victories are listed: "The Austrians he beat." "The Poles he made to flee, and he conquered Italy." "The Hollanders he slew, he Caesar did outdo" ... "There were 14 Kings at war with Napoleon the Brave"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1856 (broadside, Bodleian Firth c.12(225))
KEYWORDS: war death Napoleon
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Zimmermann, p. 106, "Napoleon the Brave" (1 fragment)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth c.12(225), "Napoleon the Brave," J. Cadman (Manchester), 1850-1855
NOTES: Zimmermann p. 106 is a fragment; broadside Bodleian Firth c.12(225) is the basis for the description. - BS
File: BrdNapBr

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Napoleon the Exile

See Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena) (File: E096)

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Napoleon's Dream

DESCRIPTION: Singer dreams of sailing past Napoleon's grave. He lands and meets Napoleon. Napoleon recalls his victories. His banner was "the standard of freedom all over the world." He says that "Liberty soon o'er the world shall be seen." The singer wakes.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1854 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 16(77b))
KEYWORDS: freedom dream Napoleon
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Moylan 207, "Napoleon's Dream" (1 text, 1 tune)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 16(77b), "Dream of Napoleon" ("One night, sad and languid, I went to my bed"), Swindells (Manchester), 1796-1853; also Harding B 16(78a), "A Dream of Napolean"[misspelling in text as well as title]; Johnson Ballads 1146[last line illegible], Firth c.16(97), Harding B 26(153), "[A|The] Dream of Napoleon[!!!]"; Harding B 19(86), "Napoleon"
NOTES: Napoleon says "The nations around you shall look with surprise, When freedom to you my descendant supplies.": Napoleon III[1808-1873; president 1848-1852; emperor 1852-1870] was the son of Napoleon's stepdaughter and, nominally, his brother Louis Bonaparte. (source: "Napoleon III of France" at the Wikipedia site). - BS
Napoleon III, like the first Napoleon, was rather contradictory in this regard. He has been called the "Bourgeois Emperor." He did end up a full-blown Imperial head of state (though under constitutional and parliamentary restrictions). But he also liberalized a lot of laws. If he had been smarter about picking his wars, his government might well have survived. But he fought the Crimean War, wasted a lot of energy installing the Habsburg princeling Maximilian in Mexico -- and then picked a war with Prussia. Or, as it would come to be called, Imperial Germany.
Naturally, he lost that, and was pushed from his throne. But the broadsides show that this song was written when he was still new and appeared a vast improvement over the reactionary Bourbon dynasty.
That seemed almost to be the story of the Bonaparte family. Napoleon himself started as a lawgiver, and ended up power-mad. His son the Duke of Reichstadt (1811-1832) was regarded as incredibly promising, but died young. And Napoleon III came in as a liberal reformer and ended up as another Emperor. - RBW
File: Moyl207

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Napoleon's Farewell to Paris

DESCRIPTION: "Farewell ye splendid citadel, metropolis called Paris...." "My name is Napoleon Bonaparte, the conqueror of nations... But now I am transported to Saint Helena's isle." Bonaparte recalls his greatness and laments his fall
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1842 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(2602)); c.1818 (broadside, NLScotland L.C.Fol.70(139))
KEYWORDS: exile lament Napoleon
FOUND IN: US(MW) Canada(Newf) Ireland
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Moylan 186, "I Am Napoleon Bonaparte" (1 text, 1 tune); 187, "Napoleon Bonaparte's Farewell to Paris" (1 text, 1 tune)
Gardner/Chickering 89, "Bony's Lament" (1 text)
Greenleaf/Mansfield 82, "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris" (1 fragment)
Creighton-NovaScotia 72, "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris" (1 fragmentary text plus some variants, 1 tune)
Peacock, pp. 1009-1011, "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, NAPOLBON
Roud #1626
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(2602), "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris," T. Birt (London), 1833-1841; also Harding B 20(267), Harding B 15(214b), Johnson Ballads fol. 59, Harding B 16(165c), Firth c.16(87), Harding B 11(2600), Harding B 11(2601), Firth c.26(124), "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris"; Harding B 11(2599), "Napoleon's Farewell"
Murray, Mu23-y1:043, "Napoleon Bonaparte," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C; also Mu23-y1:107, "Napoleon Bonaparte"
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(139), "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris," unknown, c.1818
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena)" (subject)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Napoleon Bonaparte
NOTES: The rather ornate language of this song (references to "citadels" and "bright Phoebus," etc.) seems to have caused it to be rather liable to corruption; Gardner and Chickering's text, for instance, has the first line read "Come all ye splendid city dells"! Creighton comments on the difficulty her informant had in learning the song, and prints part of a broadside text to show why he had such difficulty. - RBW
The ballad is recorded on one of the CD's issued around the time of the bicentenial of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. See:
Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "Napoleon's Farewell to Paris" (on Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte," Hummingbird Records HBCD0027 (2001)) - BS
File: GC089

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Napoleon's Lamentation

DESCRIPTION: Napoleon says "I was born to wear a stately crown." He recounts his victories until, after Moscow, "my men were lost through cold and frost." Defeats follow. He bids fare well to his "royal spouse, and offspring great"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE:
KEYWORDS: war France Napoleon royalty hardtimes wife children
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Moylan 194, "Napoleon's Lamentation" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: The ballad is recorded on one of the CD's issued around the time of the bicentenial of the 1798 Irish Rebellion. See:
Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "Napoleon's Lamentation" (on Franke Harte and Donal Lunny, "My Name is Napoleon Bonaparte," Hummingbird Records HBCD0027 (2001)) - BS
This sounds to me rather like "The Bonny Bunch of Roses" [Laws J5], recast to put it in the mouth of Napoleon the Father rather than Napoleon the Son. Of course, I can't tell in which direction the mixture went -- or, indeed, if there might not be a third song that influenced both. - RBW
File: Moyl194

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Napper

DESCRIPTION: "Napper come to my house, I thought he come to see me, When I come to find him out He 'suade my wife to leave me." And similar verses about (Napper's) eccentricities: "Napper went a-huntin', He thought he'd catch a coon... He treed a mushy-room."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1914 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: humorous hunting betrayal wife
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
BrownIII 123, "Taffy Was a Welshman" (3 short texts)
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 102-103, "Rise, Ole Napper" (2 fragments, the first of which might be "Old Tyler" or something else; the second appards to be this but is too short for certainty and is mixed with the chorus of "Oh! Susanna"; 1 tune)
Roud #7849
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Old Tyler"
cf. "Taffy Was a Welshman (I)" (floating lyrics)
NOTES: The notes in Brown say that these three fragments are "clearly derived from the familiar Mother Goose rhyme about the thieving Welshman [i.e. 'Taffy Was a Welshman']."
This is a very long stretch; the two have a few similar lines, but *not* the key phrases about Taffy. As they stand, I'd certainly call them separate songs, and possibly not even related.
Brown's "A" text may not be the same as "B" and "C," but it's too short to really deal with separately. The same can be said of Scarborough's miscellaneous one-sentence fragments.- RBW
File: Br3123

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Nat Goodwin [Laws F15]

DESCRIPTION: A young mother, sick abed, is denied a last look at her dead baby. Her husband turns her out of the house. He falls in love with another woman and kills his wife. He is executed when his new flame testifies against him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Gardner/Chickering)
KEYWORDS: murder abandonment baby execution husband wife
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sept 3, 1897 - Shooting of Mrs. (Walter) Goodwin
May 1898 - Hanging of Walter Goodwin
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Laws F15, "Nat Goodwin"
Gardner/Chickering 143, "Nat Goodwin" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 770, GOODWIN
Roud #3670
NOTES: Although this song seems to be known only from the text found in Michigan by Gardner and Chickering, the tragedy took place in Wellsboro, Pennsylvania. Gardner and Chickering report that after the hanging of Walter Goodwin, "Gertrude Taylor, the girl in the case, did the shooting." They do not report Taylor's eventual fate. - RBW
File: LF15

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Nathan Hale

DESCRIPTION: "The breezes went steadily through the tall pines, A-saying o hush...." as Nathan Hale attempts to return to his command. But the British capture him, try him, insult his cause, and hang him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1966
KEYWORDS: rebellion war prisoner execution
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sept 22, 1776 - Execution of Nathan Hale by the British as a spy.
FOUND IN: US
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scott-BoA, pp. 67-68, "Nathan Hale" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: SBoA067

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Nation Once Again, A

DESCRIPTION: "When boyhood's fire was in my blood, I read of ancient freemen... And then I prayed I yet might see... Ireland, long a province, be A nation once again." The youth describes the glories of freedom, and hopes it can be regained
AUTHOR: Thomas Davis (1814-1845)
EARLIEST DATE: 1962
KEYWORDS: Ireland rebellion freedom
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (4 citations):
PGalvin, pp. 42-43, "A Nation Once Again" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, NTNAGN
ADDITIONAL: Charles Sullivan, ed., Ireland in Poetry, p. 199, "A Nation Once Again (1 text)
Thomas Kinsella, _The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse_ (Oxford, 1989), p. 305, "A Nation Once Again" (1 text)
NOTES: Thomas Davis was an Irish poet and patriot. A member of Daniel O'Connell's National Repeal Association from 1841, he started the Nation newspaper in 1842 and was a leader of the "Young Ireland" movement that sought a more modern approach to independence.
Davis died of scarlet fever in 1845, and it never really became clear whether he supported violent revolution or agreed with O'Connell in espousing peaceful reform.
What is truly hard to imagine is the National Ireland that Davis hoped for. As is so often the with Irish leaders, Davis was Protestant. (See Robert Kee, The Most Distressful Country, being Volume I of The Green Flag, pp. 195-197).
The irony and the problem of the song is that Ireland was *never* a nation; before the English came, it had been a land of many petty chiefs who never united. The closest it came was the period from 1782-1800, when it had a truly independent parliament under the British crown. It proceeded to shoot itself in the foot, with a government so bad that it induced the 1798 rebellion and in turn caused Britain to create a parliamentary union. So the Protestant concept of the Nation of Ireland was one that oppressed Catholics, and the Catholic concept didn't exist.
And, in fact, Ireland never did manage to become the nation Davis wanted it to be, since the Catholic and Protestant parts separated, and each would display strong prejudice toward the members of the other denomination.
The first stanza refers to "Three Hundred men and Three men." The Three Hundred might refer to the Spartans who held Thermopylae against the Persians -- though they're hardly the best example of a free nation, given that the Spartan soldiers were part of an elite class that held down the majority of helots at least as strictly as the British oppressed the Irish.
But three hundred had another significance: It was the number of representatives in the old Irish parliament -- the one which had voted the Union, but which Davis (and O'Connell) proposed to recreate.
The "three men" I'm not sure about; too many possibilities.
For all that I'm carping about the historical accuracy, it cannot be denied that this song, with its stirring tune and brilliant tag line, is a very effective argument for nationalism. - RBW
File: PGa042

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National Song Used for Hauling (Russian Shanty)

DESCRIPTION: Russian hauling shanty. Translation: "Let us pull away together, boys, all together it goes - it goes, Pull away, away, together."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1888 (L.A. Smith, _Music of the Waters_)
KEYWORDS: foreignlanguage shanty worksong ship
FOUND IN: Russia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hugill, p. 573, "National Song Used for Hauling" (1 text, 1 tune)
File: Hugi573A

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Native Mate

See Give Me a Hut (File: MA137)

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Native Swords

DESCRIPTION: "We've bent too long to braggart wrong, While force our prayers derided; We've fought too long, ourselves among..." The singer briefly recounts the story of Irish rebellion, concluding, "But now, thank God, our native sod Has native swords to guard it."
AUTHOR: Thomas Davis (1814-1845)
EARLIEST DATE: 1962
KEYWORDS: Ireland rebellion
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
PGalvin, pp. 41-42, "Native Swords" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Thomas Davis (1814-1845) was an Irish poet and patriot. A member of Daniel O'Connell's National Repeal Association from 1841, he started the Nation newspaper in 1842 and was a leader of the "Young Ireland" movement that sought a more modern approach to independence.
He is probably most famous for writing "A Nation Once Again."
Davis died of scarlet fever in 1845, and it never really became clear whether he supported violent revolution or agreed with O'Connell in espousing peaceful reform. - RBW
File: PGa041

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Natural Born Reacher

DESCRIPTION: "De white man say de times is hahd, Nigger never worries, 'case he trust in de Lawd. No matter how hahd de times may be, Chicken never roost too high foh me." He recalls "Freeze," who died in a fight and now cuts no ice. He is a "nachel-bawn reacher."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: hardtimes theft death
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, pp. 232-233, "I'm a Nachel-Bawn Reacher" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST ScNF232B (Partial)
File: ScNF232B

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Navvy Boots

See The Courting Coat (File: RcWMPBO)

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Navvy Boots On

See The Courting Coat (File: RcWMPBO)

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Navvy Boy, The

DESCRIPTION: The navvy boy goes roaming, finding work and shelter with a ganger. The ganger's only daughter wishes marry and travel with him. The girl's mother questions this; the daughter says that her father was a navvy.The old man dies and leaves them 500 pounds
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1938 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: love courting rambling mother father marriage money
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SHenry H760, pp. 471-472, "The Navvy Boy" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, NAVVYBOY*
Roud #360
NOTES: It has been suggested that this is a reworking of "The Little Beggarman." There are common elements, but that's quite a stretch. Roud lumps it with "The Roving Irishman," which also has points of similarity but appears a separate song to me. - RBW
File: HHH760

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Navvy on the Line

DESCRIPTION: "I'm a nipper, I'm a ripper, I'm a navvy on the line... All the ladies love the navvies, And the navvies love the fun, There'll be plenty little babies When the railway's done." Independent verses generally about the sexual exploits/desires of the navvies
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1968 (Meredith/Anderson)
KEYWORDS: railroading courting sex bawdy
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Meredith/Anderson, p. 217, "Navvy on the Line" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES: Roy Palmer, The Folklore of Warwickshire, Rowman and Littlefield, 1976, p. 53, gives a single verse of a children's song, beginning "I'm a navvy, you'm a navvy, Working on the line; Five and twenty bob a week, And all the overtime." Clearly it derives from the same original, but it seems likely that it evolved in a very different direction. Roud appears to file this piece as his #13310. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: MA217

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Navvy, The

DESCRIPTION: The gaffer gives his girl an expensive ring and warns "beware of the navvy." The navvy gives her a cheap ring and gown to lie with him. She has a baby and goes to find her navvy who's "on the spree." They marry.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan5)
KEYWORDS: courting marriage ring sex pregnancy railroading
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #118, p. 3, ("Oh, I'll get ribbons to my hair") (1 fragment)
GreigDuncan5 977, "The Navvy" (7 texts, 5 tunes)
Roud #6730
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Navvy Lad
Donald Duff
NOTES: The alternate title of "Donald Duff" is from lines common to four of the GreigDuncan5 texts: "And I'll gang to see my navvy lad He works wi' Donal Duff."
The "gaffer," in this case may be the employer or foreman (source: Webster's Third New International Dictionary) and the navvy is the railroad worker. You can get some information on "The Navvy Age" in the notes to "The Roving Newfoundlanders (II)" [as the navvies moved to Canada], and, about their reputations as rakes in "The Courting Coat," "The Navvy Boy" and "Navvy on the Line."
GreigDuncan5 quoting Gillespie: "Heard often in Savoch district, when the Buchan railway was being made. Introduced by navvies. Noted 1906." 1858: "The Formartine and Buchan Railway Act was passed approving the building of the railway line to Peterhead with a branch line from Mintlaw to Fraserburgh." (source: "Some dates in the history of Peterhead" at danielsd demon uk site; also Records of British Railways Board Formartine and Buchan Railway 1855-1858, at National Archives of Scotland site.) - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD5977

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Naw, I Don't Want to be Rich

See You Wonder Why I'm a Hobo (File: BRaF461)

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Near to the Isle of Portland

DESCRIPTION: A ship "outward bound to the Indies" sinks in a storm. "We were near to the Island of Portland Where our gallant ship went down; There were never a better commander Sailed out of Plymouth town."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1929 (Greenleaf/Mansfield)
KEYWORDS: death sea ship disaster storm sailor wreck
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Greenleaf/Mansfield 59, "Near to the Isle of Portland" (1 text)
Roud #17748
NOTES: Portland Bill Lighthouse was built on the Isle of Portland in 1716. Portland is south of Weymouth and about 85 miles by sea east of Plymouth in the English Channel - BS
File: GrMa59

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Nearer My God To Thee

DESCRIPTION: "Nearer, my God, to thee, nearer to thee, E'en though it be a cross that raiseth me, Still all my song shall be Nearer my God to thee." Whatever tribulations come, the singer hopes they will cause him/her to come closer to God
AUTHOR: Words: Sarah Fuller Flower Adams (1805-1848)
EARLIEST DATE: 1841 (Hymns and Anthems)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Silber-FSWB, p. 353, "Nearer My God To Thee" (1 text)
Fuld-WFM, pp. 387-388, "Nearer, My God, To Thee"
ADDITIONAL: Charles Johnson, One Hundred and One Famous Hymns (Hallberg, 1982), pp. 92-93, "Nearer, My God To Thee" (1 text, 1 tune)
RECORDINGS:
Climax Quartet, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" (Climax [Columbia] 518, 1900; Harvard 518 [as unidentified Vocal Quartet], 1903-1906)
Elliott Shaw, "Nearer My God to Thee" (Resona 75016, 1919)
Spencer, Young & Wheeler, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" (Edison 80074, n.d.)
Unidentified baritone, "Nearer, My God, to Thee" (Oxford 397, c. 1909)
SAME TUNE:
Nero, My Dog, Has Fleas (Pankake-PHCFSB, p. 107)
NOTES: The words of this song date from 1841 (or earlier), and proved popular enough that it soon acquired three different tunes.
The standard tune in America is by Lowell Mason, published in 1859; this often bears the name "Bethany." The tune most often used in the Church of England is "Horbury," said by Johnson to be by John Dykes. British Methodists tend to use the tune "Propior Deo" by Sir Arthur Sullivan. If that weren't confusing enough, I have encountered at least one other attempt by a modern composer to abuse the text.
I do not believe any of the results qualify as true folk songs, but the piece is widespread enough that I chose to include it here.
This seems to be the Official Song of People Dying Under Unfortunate Circumstances in the Absence of Corroborating Witnesses. The story that it was played as the Titanic went down is simply false (a story spread by one Mrs. A. A. Dick; see Wyn Craig Wade, The Titanic: End of a Dream revised edition, Penguin, 1986, pp. 61-62 -- the disproof being that the passengers who claimed they heard the song were British and American both; see Walter Lord, The Night Lives On, Avon, 1986, p. 110). Johnson reports that William McKinley's doctor claimed these were the dying president's last words. Interesting how none of these claims are ever capable of verification. In the aftermath of the Johnstown Flood, there were newspaper reports of families singing the song in harmony as they were washed away in the flood; see David McCullough The Johnstown Flood (Simon and Schuster, 1968), p. 221. - RBW
File: FSWB353C

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Neat Irish Girl, The

See Polly on the Shore (The Valiant Sailor) (File: Wa057)

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Neat Little Window, The

See The Bonny Wee Window [Laws O18] (File: LO18)

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Neath the Gloamin' Star at E'en

See The Gloamin' Star at E'en (File: Ord066)

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Nebuchadnezzar's Wife

DESCRIPTION: "Nebuchadnezzar, the King of the Jews Sold his wife for a pair of shoes. When the shoes began to wear, good lack, Nebuchadnezzar wanted her back."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1976 (Palmer)
KEYWORDS: royalty wife clothes humorous
FOUND IN: Britain(England)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Roy Palmer, _The Folklore of Warwickshire_, Rowman and Littlefield, 1976, p. 97, (no title) (1 single-verse fragment)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Sale of a Wife" (theme) and references there
NOTES: It's hard to know what to do with reports of skipping rhymes (are they songs, or just doggerel?), but this sounds to me very much like a folk song, so I'm including it here.
For the idea of selling a wife, see the notes to "Sale of a Wife."
The reference to Nebuchadnezzar is interesting. He is sort of the Standard Heathen King of the Old Testament, mentioned about 85 times, with the largest number of mentions being in the books of Jeremiah (whose prophesies cover much of Nebuchadnezzar's long reign) and Daniel (although the events in Daniel, insofar as they are non-fictional and not related to the Maccabean period, seem to be based on the historical Nabonidas, who was perhaps Nebuchadnezzar's son-in-law, rather than Nebuchadnezzar himself). He is also mentioned in Tobit 14:14, where he is credited, falsely, with conquering Ninevah, and in Judith 1:1 and following we find him falsely being called the Assyrian Emperor.
Nebuchadnezzar (or, as Jeremiah more correctly calls him, Nebuchadrezzar) is the Hebrew name for the Chaldean Emperor Nabo-kudurri-usur II. He couldn't really be called the King of the Jews -- he overthrew the Davidic dynasty and deported the people (these events are described in the last two chapters of 2 Kings), but the land was left desolate; there was no King of Judah. Indeed, several records in Babylon still call the deposed King Jehoiachin "King of Ya-u-du" (i.e. Judah; Noth, p. 282). But Nebuchadnezzar did rule almost all the Jews of the Dispersion -- the only ones not within his borders were the handful who had fled into Egypt.
And he was easy to remember, because he reigned for a very long time -- 43 years, according to the Uruk King List (PritchardII, p. 119). He assumed the throne of Babylon in 605, following the death of his father Nabopolassar (If you're wondering about all these names starting with "Nabo" or "Nebo," Nebo was a Chaldean god). This took place just after Nebuchadnezzar had won the great battle of Charchemish and destroyed the last remnant of the Assyrian empire and smashed a great Egyptian army (Bright, p. 326; compare Jeremiah 46:2-4). Had it not been for the death of his father, it is quite possible that Nebuchadnezzar would have gone on to destroy Egypt. As it was, Judah became a Babylonian vassal, but rebelled and was conquered in 598/597. The rebellious King Jehoiakim conveniently died (Bright, p. 327, speculates that he was assassinated), and Nebuchadnezzar did not entirely destroy Judah, although he did exile many of the best people and the new King Jehoiachin (2 Kings 24). A decade later, Jehoiachin's uncle Zedekiah rebelled, and Judah was conquered again in 587 (2 Kings 25). Judah was destroyed and its people exiled.
Many Jews probably expected divine revenge on Nebuchadnezzar. It didn't come. He remained King for another quarter century, and embarked in an ambitious rebuilding of Babylon, with much building of temples and monuments to his gods (Leick, p. 119). He finally died in 562.-- opening the door for chaos in Babylon. (And these dates are pretty firm -- according to Dougherty, p. 10, his date list for the Chaldean kings, which agrees with PritchardII, is said to be based on "more than two thousand dated cuneiform documents.") Three kings reigned before Nabonidas took the throne in 556 (Bright, pp. 352-353), and then Babylon fell to the Persians in 539.
Actual records of Nebuchadnezzar's private life are of course few; PritchardI, p. 203, records his brief account of his first capture in Jerusalem in 598 B.C.E., while p. 205 lists some of his household accounts. Goodspeed, p. 349, notes the "instability" of his dynasty -- but there is no mention of his wife, just of the weakness of his son and the brutality of his son-in-law. Still, based on all the sources I checked (not all of which are cited here, since they duplicated the material in the sources I have cited), there seem to have been no succession quarrels in the period before his death, nor is there any mention of a son other than Amel-Marduk (the Bible's Evil-Merodach), implying that there weren't a bunch of wives trying to advance the interests of their sons. - RBW
Bibliography

• Bright: John Bright, A History of Israel, third edition, Westminster Press, 1981
• Dougherty: Raymond Philip Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar: A Study of the Closing Events of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, Yale University Press, 1929
• Goodspeed: George Stephen Goodspeed, A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, 1902, 1903 (I used the 1915 Scribners edition)
• Leick: Gwendolyn Leick, Who's Who in the Ancient Near East, Routledge, 1999
• Noth: Martin Noth, A History of Israel, translated from the second German edition of Geschichte Israels, 1959, by P. R. Ackroyd, Harper & Row, 1960
• PritchardI: James B. Pritchard, editor, The Ancient Near East, Volume I: An Anthology of Texts and Pictures, a selection of materials from Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament (1950, 1955) and THe Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (1954); Princeton University Press, 1958 (I use the undated but post-1973 13th printing of the paperback edition)
• PritchardII: James B. Pritchard, editor, The Ancient Near East, Volume II: A New Anthology of Texts and Pictures, a selection of materials from Ancient Near Eastern Texts Related to the Old Testament (1950, 1955) and THe Ancient Near East in Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (1954, 1969); Princeton University Press, 1975 (I use the undated fourth printing of the paperback edition)

Last updated in version 2.5
File: PalWa097

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Ned Kelly's Farewell to Greta

See Farewell to Greta (File: FaE114)

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Needle's Eye, The

DESCRIPTION: "The needle's eye that doth supply The thread that runs so true, Oh many a beau have I let go Because I wanted you." The remaining verses describe how the singer(s) have courted and passed others by; the needle may have "caught" the (girl)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1903 (Newell)
KEYWORDS: playparty courting
FOUND IN: US(Ap,MW,NE,So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Randolph 545, "The Needle's Eye" (2 text plus an excerpt, 1 tune)
BrownIII 74, "The Needle's Eye" (1 fragment)
Hudson 144, pp. 291-293, "Needle's Eye" (2 fragments)
Linscott, pp. 43-44, "The Needle's Eye" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST R545 (Full)
Roud #4506
RECORDINGS:
Margaret MacArthur, "The Needle's Eye" [fragment] (on MMacArthur01)
File: R545

---

Needlecases

DESCRIPTION: Singer, a peddler, is poor and hungry, and offers to sell the listener needlecases. He was once well-off, but is now homeless and friendless; once a farmer, now in rags. Since the listener won't buy, he's off, but asks listener to buy some if he returns.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1923 (Williams)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer, a peddler, is poor and hungry, and offers to sell the listener needlecases. He was once well-off, but is now homeless and friendless; once a farmer, he's now in rags. Since the listener won't buy, he's off, but asks listener to buy some if he returns. Chorus: "Needlecases, will you buy one?/You will buy one, I'm sure/Won't you buy a case o' needles/From Jack that's so poor?"
KEYWORDS: poverty request clothes commerce hardtimes
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South, North))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Kennedy 233, "Needlecases" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1300
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Case of Needles
NOTES: We haven't keywords for "peddler" or "street-cry," so "commerce" will have to do. - PJS
File: K233

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Neerie Norrie

See Four and Twenty Tailors (File: KinBB13)

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Negro Cotton Picker

DESCRIPTION: Composite fragment of cotton-picking items: "Way down in de bottom, when de cotton's all rotten, Can't pick a hundred a day. Aught for aught, and figger for figger, All for de white man an' none for de nigger."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1923 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: work hardtimes discrimination
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 211, "Negro Cotton Picker" (1 fragment)
File: Br3211

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Negro Reel

DESCRIPTION: "Laws-a-massey, what have you done? You've married the old man instead of his son! His legs are all crooked and wrong put on, They're all laughing at your old man. Now you're married you must obey... Kiss him twice and hug him too."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Sandburg)
KEYWORDS: marriage nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Sandburg, pp. 134-135, "Negro Reel" (1 short text, 1 tune)
NOTES: This is probably an odd version of "Sally Walker," but as it might be derived from "Oats and Beans" instead, I give it its own category. - RBW
File: San134

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Negro Yodel Song

DESCRIPTION: "I love my wife and baby, Each morning so soon. I love my wife and baby." In the Brown text, every other word, starting with "love," is yodelled.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1952 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
BrownIII 453, "Negro Yodel Song" (1 short text)
Roud #11794
File: Br3453

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Neighbor Jones

See Gossip Joan (Neighbor Jones) (File: Br3144)

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Neist Market Day, The

See The Next Market Day (File: FSWB158B)

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Nell Cropsey (I)

DESCRIPTION: One night Nell's former lover Jim (Wilcox) calls on her. She disappears for three months, then her mother sees her body on the river. Her lover winds up in prison
AUTHOR: credited to Bessie Wescott Midgett
EARLIEST DATE: 1912 (Chappell)
KEYWORDS: murder
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1901 - Murder of Ella Maude "Nellie" Cropsey, presumably by her former lover Jim Wilcox
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
BrownII 307 "Nellie Cropsey" (2 texts)
Chappell-FSRA 61, "Nell Cropsey, I" (1 text)
McNeil-SFB2, pp. 82-84, "Nellie Cropsey" (1 text)
ST MN2082 (Partial)
Roud #4117
CROSS-REFERENCES:
"cf. The Jealous Lover (Florella, Floella) (Pearl Bryan II) (Nell Cropsey II)" [Laws F1]
cf. "Nell Cropsey (III -- Swift Flowing River)"
NOTES: This song is item dF45 in Laws's Appendix II, but should certainly have been listed higher; he did not know the Brown version.
There are extensive historical notes in Brown, which concur with the song in saying that she was very pretty but list her age as 19, not 16 as in the text of the song.
Chappell has four songs associated by title with Nellie Cropsey, but only two (I and IV) mention her name: This one and the Nell Cropsey subfamily of "The Jealous Lover."
To tell this from the Jealous Lover version, consider this first verse:
On the twentieth of November,
A day we all remember well,
When a handsome girl was murdered,
Of her story I will tell. - RBW
File: MN2082

---

Nell Cropsey (II)

See Jealous Lover, The (Florella, Floella) (Pearl Bryan II) (Nell Cropsey II) [Laws F1A, B, C] (File: LF01)

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Nell Cropsey (III -- Swift Flowing River)

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, swift flowing river, A secret you hold, Way down in the depths Of the water so cold." The singer begs the river to tell its secret. A "fair girl" is missing, "stolen away in the night." "The secret, Oh River, You surely must know."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Elizabeth City _Daily Advance_); reportedly collected 1902
KEYWORDS: murder river
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1901 - Murder of Ella Maude "Nellie" Cropsey, presumably by her former lover Jim Wilcox
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Chappell-FSRA 62, "Nell Cropsey, II" (1 text)
ST ChFRA062 (Partial)
Roud #4117
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Nell Cropsey (I)" (subject of some versions) and references there
NOTES: Although Chappell lists this as a Nell Cropsey song, and the details (such few as the song contains) fit that case, Cropsey is not mentioned in the text; it might be about another murder.
Roud lumps this with all the other Nell Cropsey songs, but it is clearly distinct. The real question is, Is it traditional? The only collection is Chappell's, from a printed source, allegedly based on a poem (song?) taken down around the time of the murder. - RBW
File: ChFRA062

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Nell Cropsey (IV)

See The Wexford (Oxford, Knoxville, Noel) Girl [Laws P35] (File: LP35)

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Nell Flaherty's Drake

DESCRIPTION: "Oh, my name it is Neil, quite candid I tell, And I lived in Clonmell, which I'll never deny, I had a large drake..." which she describes in loving terms. One day a thief steals (and kills) the drake. The rest of the song is an extended curse of the thief
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1851 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 11(2612))
KEYWORDS: animal bird curse thief theft
FOUND IN: Ireland Australia
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Meredith/Covell/Brown, pp. 128-129, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text, 1 tune)
SHenry H228b, pp. 18-19, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text, 2 tunes)
O'Conor, pp. 14-15, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text)
Hayward-Ulster, pp. 68-69, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text)
DT, NELLFLAH*
ADDITIONAL: Kathleen Hoagland, editor, One Thousand Years of Irish Poetry (New York, 1947), p. 289, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (1 text)
Roud #3005
RECORDINGS:
The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem, "Nell Flaherty's Drake" (on IRClancyMakem03)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(2612), "Nell Flaherty's Drake", M. Stephenson (Gateshead), 1838-1850; also 2806 b.11(218), 2806 c.16(21), Harding B 15(216b), 2806 b.11(279), 2806 c.8(306), Johnson Ballads 1220, Johnson Ballads 2696, Harding B 11(2610), Harding B 11(2613), Harding B 11(2614), Harding B 11(2615), 2806 c.16(3a), Harding B 11(2611), "Nell Flaherty's Drake"; 2806 b.9(236), Harding B 26(461), 2806 b.11(132) [lines only partly legible], "Nell Flagherty's Drake"
LOCSinging, as109390, "Nell Flaugherty's Drake", J. Andrews (New York), 1853-1859; also sb30356b, "Nell Flaugherty's Drake"
Murray, Mu23-y1:062, "Nell Flaherty's Drake," James Lindsay (Glasgow), 19C; also Mu23-y4:054, "Nell Flaherty's Drake," unknown (Cork), 19C
NLScotland, L.C.Fol.70(142a), "Nell Flaherty's Drake," unknown, c. 1845
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Wee Duck (The Duck from Drummuck)" (plot, subject?)
cf. "Betsy Brennan's Blue Hen" (plot, lines)
NOTES: Tommy Makem describes this as a song about Robert Emmet (executed 1803). I can't prove it wrong -- but if so, it's the most indirect song I know. Certainly later singers (such as those in Australia) seem to have lost consciousness of any anti-British sentiment. For background on Emmet, see "Bold Robert Emmet" and the songs cited there. - RBW
I have not found "Nell Flaherty's Drake" collected in Newfoundland but Johnny Burke's "Betsy Brennan's Blue Hen" is so close that he must have known "Nell Flaherty's Drake." There is no entry for "Nell Flaherty's Drake" in Newfoundland Songs and Ballads in Print 1842-1974 A Title and First-Line Index by Paul Mercer.
Commentary to broadside NLScotland L.C.Fol.70(142a): "'Nell Flaherty's Drake' is an anonymous Irish ballad from the nineteenth century. The drake of the title is believed to be a coded reference to Robert Emmet (1778-1803), who helped to plan and led an uprising against British rule in Dublin in 1803. The uprising went wrong after an explosion at an arms depot, and Emmet was captured and hanged for his part in the uprising and the assassination of the Lord Chief Justice. Irish Home Rule was a volatile subject in Britain in the nineteenth as well as the twentieth century, hence the coding in this song."
This song has the same relationship to "The Bonny Brown Hen" [this adds a villain and curses] that "Betsy Brennan's Blue Hen" has to "Blue Hen" on MacEdward Leach and Songs of Atlantic Canada site, copyright owner Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.
Broadside LOCSinging as113120: J. Andrews dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
File: MCB128

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Nell of Narragansett Bay

See Little Nell of Narragansett Bay (File: Brew88)

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Nellie (I)

DESCRIPTION: The singer complains about Nellie's choice of the lily over the rose. Mountain verses: blueberries grow, a castle light-house on top, at its foot the ocean where green-flagged gunships sail to Newry where his "unkind" sweetheart is.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1954 (Creighton-Maritime)
KEYWORDS: courting rejection floatingverses nonballad wordplay
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-Maritime, p. 79, "Nellie" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #688
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Streams of Lovely Nancy" (lyrics)
NOTES: This song shares one verse with "The Streams of Lovely Nancy" [with which Roud lumps it - RBW], which it corrupts:
At the top of this mountain a castle does stand,
It is decked round with ivy and back to the strand,
It is decked round with ivy and marble stone white,
It's a pilot for sailors on a dark stormy night.
Otherwise it shares a confused story line with that ballad but the confusions are not shared: I don't think this is a version of "Streams."
In the language of flowers the white lily stands for virginity and the red rose stands for love.
Newry is about 35 miles southwest of Belfast. - BS
File: CrMa079

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Nellie (II)

DESCRIPTION: "Come, listen to me, a story I'll tell... I once loved and courted a dear little girl." But her parents are opposed, and she marries rich Mr. Brown. He is a drunkard and ignores her. She dies. The singer wants to die for love of her
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1932 (JAFL 45, collected from Mrs. Emory P. Morrow)
KEYWORDS: love abandonment drink death
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, pp. 142-143, "Nellie" (1 text)
Roud #4212
File: MHAp142

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Nellie Coming Home From the Wake

See Nelly the Milkmaid (File: RL169)

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Nellie Dare

See The Two Letters (Charlie Brooks; Nellie Dare) (File: R735)

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Nellie Douglas

DESCRIPTION: "It's O and alas, and O wae's me," cries Nellie as she prepares to depart friends and employment. Young Abram bids her cease; she has his heart. She says she cannot wed him; he is above her station. He marries her anyway, and makes her a lady
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1930 (Ord)
KEYWORDS: love courting nobility marriage
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ord, p. 123, "Nellie Douglas" (1 text)
Roud #5547
File: Ord123

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Nellie Far Away

DESCRIPTION: "This is my natal day Have you thought of home with sorrow, Of Nellie far away"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1911 (GreigDuncan6)
KEYWORDS: homesickness love separation nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan6 1252, "Nellie Far Away" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #6788
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan6 fragment. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD61252

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Nellie Moore

DESCRIPTION: "In a low green valley where the birds so sweetly sing... Of a summer eve we' launch our little boat. The singer recalls happy days with Nellie, but "Oh, I miss you, Nellie Moore, and my hapiness is o'er... For you've gone from the little cottage home."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1959 (Shellans)
KEYWORDS: love courting separation
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Shellans, pp. 32-33, "Nellie Moore" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #7326
NOTES: Shellans suspects that this may be derived from "Darling Nelly Gray," and certainly there are quite a few verbal similarities. But this clearly qualifies as a separate song. - RBW
File: Shel032

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Nellie Was a Lady

DESCRIPTION: "Down on the Mississippi floating, Long time I travel on the way." The singer mourns his love: "Nellie was a lady," but "Last night while Nellie was a-sleeping, Death came a-knocking at the door." He will leave Virginia because he mourns so deeply
AUTHOR: Stephen C. Foster
EARLIEST DATE: 1849 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: death love home
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dean, p. 122, "Nellie Was a Lady" (1 text)
Roud #4273
NOTES: According to Sigmund Spaeth, A History of Popular Music in America, p. 106, this was "Foster's hit in 1849, now chiefly known as a barber-shop favorite." (And, indeed, nearly every reference I found to it online was to barbershop arrangements). - RBW
File: Dean122

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Nelly Bly

DESCRIPTION: "Nelly Bly! Nelly Bly! Bring de broom along, We'll sweep de kitchen clean, my dear, and hab a little song." The singer tells how Nelly makes him happy -- she has the voice of a turtle dove, her step is music, and they have corn and pumpkins in the barn
AUTHOR: Stephen C. Foster
EARLIEST DATE: 1850 (sheet music)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
BrownIII 407, "Nelly Bly" (1 fragment)
Arnett, pp. 64-65, "Nelly Bly!" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 144, "Nelly Bly" (1 text)
DT, NELLYBLY*
Roud #13956
File: Arn064

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Nelly Ray

See The Female Highwayman [Laws N21] (File: LN21)

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Nelly the Milkmaid

DESCRIPTION: Nelly, coming home from the wake (a country dance, not a funeral), is seduced, her ravisher, sometimes named Roger, assuring her he was merely "shooting at the cat." In some versions she gives birth to a son whom she names Shoot the Cat.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1885 (GreigDuncan7)
KEYWORDS: bawdy sex seduction childbirth
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont) Britain(England,Scotland(Aber)) US(So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
GreigDuncan7 1481, "Coming Home from the Wake" (2 texts plus a single verse on p. 534, 1 tune)
Randolph-Legman I, pp. 169-172, "Nelly the Milkmaid" (2 texts, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan 62, "Nellie Coming Home From the Wake" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #1606
RECORDINGS:
O. J. Abbott, "Nellie Coming Home from the Wake" (on Abbott1)
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Firth b.34(178), "The Milkmaid Coming from the Wake" ("Young Nelly the milkmaid right buxom and gay"), H. Such (London), 1863-1885; also Harding B 40(3), "Coming Home from the Wake"; Firth b.33(47), "Nelly the Milk Maid"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mossie and His Meer" (tune, per GreigDuncan7)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Young Helen
NOTES: Bodleian broadside Firth b.33(47), printed by Thornton at Kenilworth, which Bodleian does not date, would seem by its font (non-final long "s," some arbitrary capitals but no italics), to be older than either of the dated broadsides [c.1770?-c.1830?]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: RL169

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Nelson's Fame, and England's Glory

DESCRIPTION: Nelson's 27 ships, led by Victory, faced 33 ships of the combined Franch and Spanish fleet. Individual British victories are described. Finally, the Leviathan and Conqueror "came to our timely aid" and the British take 19 in tow "to show we won the day"
AUTHOR: William Welch? (source: Holloway and Black's broadside is "signed" "William Welch")
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (GreigDuncan1); 19C (broadside, Holloway and Black)
KEYWORDS: battle navy sea ship
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Oct 21, 1805 - Battle of Trafalgar
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #70, p. 2, ("It was daylight the next morning"); Greig #158, p. 3, ("The Victory she came bearing down") (2 texts)
GreigDuncan1 146, "Nelson's Fame, and England's Glory" (1 text)
Roud #5821
NOTES: Greig and GreigDuncan1 are fragments; Holloway and Black, Later English Broadside Ballads Volume 2 68, pp. 174-175 is the basis for the description.
Compare the verse here [Greig #70]
Three were burned, and three were sunk,
And eight that ran away,
And other nineteen we took and towed,
To show we had gained the day.
with the verse from "The Royal Oak" [Greig #64]
Two we sunk, and two we brunt,
The fifth one she did win away;
And one we brought to Bristol town,
To show we had won the day.
There are no other common lines in more complete texts (for example, comparing Vaughan Williams/Lloyd, p. 91, "The Royal Oak" and Holloway and Black).
As regards "nineteen we took and towed away," Holloway and Black notes "the British captured eighteen of the Franco-Spanish fleet's thirty-three ships."
Holloway and Black, noting that Nelson's death is not mentioned in their text: "This ballad may originally have been issued as a news-ballad immediately after the ballad and before the death of Nelson in it was known." - BS
According to John Keegan, The Price of Admiralty: The Evolution of Naval Warfare, Penguin, 1988, 1990, p. 90, the British did in fact deprive the Combined Fleet of 19 of the 33 French and Spanish ships at Trafalgar. However, Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World, 2004 (I use the 2005 Harper Perennial edition), p. 393, makes the number 18, presumably deducting the Achille which had exploded (Herman, p. 392). In addition, the largest of the Spanish ships, the Santissima Trinidad, was so battered that she sank -- which, as Keegan notes on p. 91, was an exceptional fate for a wooden ship of the period unless it caught fire.
Thus the British were "in possession" of 18 ships after Trafalgar, soon to be reduced to 17. However, a great storm followed, and in the end, only 18 of the 33 French and Spanish ships survived that, whether in British hands or in the hands of their own crews (Keegan, p. 96). The Combined Fleet suffered an estimated 4400 fatalities (Keegan, p. 96). British casualties were 449 killed and 1214 wounded; no ships were lost though quite a few losts masts and a few suffered damage to their hulls (Keegan, p. 94).
The notion that the publisher knew of the victory at Trafalgar but not of the death of Nelson is hard to sustain. Supposedly the first word to come to the Admiralty came from a lieutenant who arrived at the office and declared "Sir, we have gained a great victory but we have lost Lord Nelson" (Herman, p. 395). The two reports certainly arrived on the same ship. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD1146

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Nelson's Glorious Victory at Trafalgar

See Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar (Brave Nelson) [Laws J17] (File: LJ17)

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Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar (Brave Nelson) [Laws J17]

DESCRIPTION: Nelson leads his English fleet to battle with the French and Spanish navies off Cadiz. "He broke their line of battle, and struck the fatal blow," but in the melee is shot. He dies knowing he has won and that Napoleon's threat to Britain is ended
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1869 (Logan)
KEYWORDS: war Napoleon injury death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1758-1805 - Life of Horatio Nelson, victor at Aboukir (the Nile), Copenhagen, and Trafalgar
Oct 21, 1805 - Battle of Trafalgar
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar) Britain
REFERENCES (6 citations):
Laws J17, "Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar (Brave Nelson)"
Logan, pp. 67-69, "Nelson's Glorious Victory at Trafalgar" (1 text)
Mackenzie 77, "Nelson's Victory at Trafalgar" (1 text)
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 94, "Brave Nelson" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 549, NLSNTRAF
ADDITIONAL: C. H. Firth, _Publications of the Navy Records Society_ , 1907 (available on Google Books), p. 301, "Nelson's Glorious Victory at Trafalgar" (1 text)
ST LJ17 (Full)
Roud #522
NOTES: Napoleon dearly wanted to capture Britain -- and he was right to feel that way; Britain was his worst enemy and the one that finally defeated him. But he could not invade England unless the Royal Navy could be swept aside. Trafalgar was his attempt to do so, and it failed miserably. The Franco-Spanish navy, under Villaneuve, was slightly larger (33 ships to Nelson's 27), but poorly led and badly trained. Nelson not only had a better fleet, but new ideas. After a game of cat and mouse that had led the fleets all the way to the Americas, the two fleets finally met off Cape Trafalgar in 1805. Nelson's method of "breaking the line" worked, and he heavily defeated the French. In the midst of the battle, however, he was shot by a French sharpshooter and mortally wounded.
Even so, the French threat to Britain was permanently lifted.
Miscellaneous references in the broadside include:
"The hero of the Nile": Nelson's first great exploit against Napoleon occurred before the turn of the century, when he effectively destroyed the fleet that had carried Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. The conflict was known as "The Battle of the Nile" (August 1, 1798).
"Collingwood" was Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood (1758-1810), Nelson's second in command and Chief Assistant Hero of the battle. - RBW
A distinguishing characteristic of this ballad is that each verse ends "brave Nelson."
I haven't found this ballad among the broadsides in the Bodleian catalog though there are broadsides on the subject. See, for example, the chapbook printed by J. Pitts (London) with fifteen "admired songs, on the glorious victory off Trafalgar," Bodleian Curzon b.24(98) [not all of it legible]. - BS
File: LJ17

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Neptune, Ruler of the Sea

DESCRIPTION: "The Neptune, ruler of the sea, she rides in court today, Filled up with white-coats to the hatch and her colors flying gay.... While bats did rattle on their heads, the murder then began. " Captain Kane's ship returns home with 30,000 harp seals.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Leach-Labrador)
KEYWORDS: hunting sea ship
FOUND IN: Canada(Newf)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Leach-Labrador 81, "Neptune, Ruler of the Sea" (1 text, 1 tune)
Ryan/Small, p. 119, "'Neptune,' Ruler of the Sea" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST LLab081 (Partial)
Roud #9979
File: LLab081

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Nervous Family, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer's family: "if left in the dark, are all frighten'd at each other"; the dog is afraid of visitors; the cat is afraid of a mouse. Doctors, lawyers, watchmen, pills, cordials don't help. Suddenly, the singer feels better and may not go home.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1842 (broadside, Bodleian Harding B 25(1322))
KEYWORDS: disability medicine ordeal humorous nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan8 1780, "We're A' Nervous" (1 text)
Roud #12988
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 25(1322), "The Nervous Family" ("We are all nervous, shake, shake, -- termbling [sic]"), T. Birt (London), 1833-1841; also Harding B 11(2625), "The Nervous Family"
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "We're a' Noddin'" (tune, per GreigDuncan8)
cf. "The Crying Family (Imaginary Trouble)" (theme: much worry about nothing)
NOTES: Broadside Bodleian Harding B 25(1322) is the basis for the description. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD81780

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Netherha'

DESCRIPTION: "The cookmaid and the cowboy, Like wise his gallant grieve, He has brough them owre the Cairnamount For aught that we believe. Cabbage kail and spruce beer, Was all our daily fare And marching on from field to field Was all our toil and care"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: farming work
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan3 367, "Netherha'" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #5910
NOTES: GreigDuncan3: "Netherthird" and "Netherha'" fragments "may belong to the same song, but, in the absence of overlapping material, it is not possible to be certain of this." They do share a nonsense chorus (." .. airie airitie adie adie Airie airitie an") and very similar tunes [vaguely like the tune used by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger for "The Monymusk Lads" (on "Classic Scots Ballads," Tradition TLP1015 LP (1959). If, in fact, they are part of the same song then "Netherthird" would provide the first verse. - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD3367

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Nethermill

DESCRIPTION: The singer hires to Swaggers to be second man plowing. But first he is sent to the mill. They eat at seven, clean horses at eight, plow all day through leisure hour: "there is na time to spare." Beware of hiring to Swaggers at Netherhill.
AUTHOR: 1908 (GreigDuncan3)
EARLIEST DATE: William Forsyth (source: Greig #19, p. 2)
KEYWORDS: farming work ordeal
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #179, pp. 1-2, "Nethermill" (1 text)
GreigDuncan3 387, "Nethermill" (1 text)
Roud #5921
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Swaggers" (subject)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Nethermill, Tarves
NOTES: GreigDuncan3 has a map on p. xxxv, of "places mentioned in songs in volume 3" showing the song number as well as place name; Nethermill (387) is at coordinate (h3-4,v8-9) on that map [roughly 18 miles N of Aberdeen]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD3387

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Netherthird

DESCRIPTION: "As I gaed up through Lammas fair Ance on a day to fee Mony a grey-faced fairmer That day did look at me"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1909 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: farming work
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan3 366, "Netherthird" (2 fragments, 1 tune)
Roud #5909
NOTES: The current description is all of the GreigDuncan3 fragment from John Ord.
Candlemas [February 2], Whitsunday [May 15], Lammas [August 1] and Martinmas [November 11] were the four "Old Scottish term days" "on which servants were hired, and rents and rates were due." (Source: Wikipedia article Quarter days).
GreigDuncan3: "Netherthird" and "Netherha'" fragments "may belong to the same song, but, in the absence of overlapping material, it is not possible to be certain of this." They do share a nonsense chorus (." .. airie airitie adie adie Airie airitie an") and very similar tunes [vaguely like the tune used by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger for "The Monymusk Lads" on SCMacCollSeeger01]. If, in fact, they are part of the same song then "Netherthird" would provide the first verse. - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD3366

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Neumerella Shore, The

See The Eumerella Shore (File: MA155)

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Neuve Chappelle

DESCRIPTION: "For when we landed in Belgium, the girls all danced for joy, Says one unto the other, 'Here comes an Irish boy.'" The singer reports that the Irish won Neuve Chappelle. The Kaiser and Von Kluck lament that the Irish have arrived
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1933 (Sam Henry collection)
KEYWORDS: war soldier battle derivative
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
March 10, 1915 - Start of the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (2 citations):
SHenry H526, p. 182, "Neuve Chappelle" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: Jerry SIlverman, _Ballads & Songs of WWI_, Mel Bay, 1997, 2008, pp. 174-175, "Neuve Chappelle" (1 text, 1 tune, which appears to be a direct copy of the Henry version)
Roud #8004
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "True-Born Irish Man (With My Swag All on My Shoulder; The True-Born Native Man)" (form)
NOTES: Gale Huntington considered this to be an actual version of "The True-Born Irish Man." Given that the Henry text has only two verses, that strikes me as extreme. But it is clearly derived from that song.
The song describes Neuve Chapelle as a British victory. It was certainly a British battle, involving the British 7th and 8th Divisions, plus two Indian divisions. They attacked and smashed the equivalent of less than a German brigade, but then were stopped and the front stabilized. The battle had some effect on British morale (showing that the newly-arriving Territorial troops were solid), but British casualties were much higher than German; it was in no sense a victory for either side.
Von Kluck is General Alexander von Kluck, commander of the German First Army (the right flank element of the German force in France); his, more than anyone else's, had been the task of outflanking the French in 1914, and in this, he had failed.
Kluck continued in command until 1915 (when he was wounded and permanently invalided), but he played no real part in Neuve Chappelle (the real commander on the front by this time was simply defensive doctrine) and would not have been discussing it with the Kaiser. The Western Front was under what amounted to the direct command of the German commander-in-chief, Falkenheyn, who approved all plans and would have been responsible for any talks with Wilhelm II. - RBW
Last updated in version 2.5
File: HHH526

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Never Be as Fast as I Have Been

See The Sporting Bachelors (File: LxU014)

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Never Change the Old Love for the New

See My Blue-Eyed Boy (File: R759)

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Never Go Back on the Poor

DESCRIPTION: "In this world of sorrow, of toil and regret, There are scenes I would gladly pass o�er." A great ship sinks as it carries emigrants forced from home by poverty. Divers go to examine the wreck, but make little effort to recover the steerage passengers
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1922 (Dean)
KEYWORDS: ship wreck poverty
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Mar 31/Apr 1, 1873 - wreck of the Atlantic
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Dean, pp. 116-117, "Never Go Back on the Poor" (1 text)
Roud #9594
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Loss of the Atlantic (I)"
NOTES: This song nowhere specifies the name of the shipwreck it describes, but it sounds to me as if it describes the Atlantic wreck of 1873: She carried emigrants, losses were large and affected the Steerage in particular, and the captain was asleep at the time of the collision. - RBW
File: Dean116

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Never Let Your Honey Have Her Way

DESCRIPTION: "John Henry's dead, And de las' words he said, 'Never let your honey Have her way." "'Way back, 'Way back, Way back in Alabama, 'Way back." "If you let her have her way, She'll lead you off astray." "De chickens in my sack, Bloodhounds on my track."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Scarborough)
KEYWORDS: death dog crime escape
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Scarborough-NegroFS, p. 221, "John Henry's Dead" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Rabbit in the Log (Feast Here Tonight)"
NOTES: I've heard this song (or something like it) sung as "Pay Day," in a version quite close to "Rabbit in the Log (Feast Here Tonight)." But I can't swear that that wasn't a modified version, so I'm filing it separately from both "John Henry" and "Rabbit in the Log." - RBW
File: ScNF221

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Never Mind Your Knapsack

See We Have the Navy (File: R212)

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Never Said a Mumbalin' Word

See Never Said a Mumbling Word (File: LxU102)

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Never Said a Mumbling Word

DESCRIPTION: "Oh they whupped him up the hill, up the hill... and he never said a mumbalin' word..... They crowned him with a thorny crown.... They nailed him to the cross.... They pierced him in the side.... Then he hung down his head and he died."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1926
KEYWORDS: Bible Jesus religious death
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
BrownIII 578, "He Never Said a Mumbling Word" (1 text)
Lomax-FSUSA 102, "Never Said a Mumblin' Word" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 587-588, "Never Said a Mumbalin' Word" (1 text, 1 tune)
Botkin-SoFolklr, p. 759, "He Never Said a Mumbalin' Word" (1 text, 1 tune)
Courlander-NFM, p. 60, (no title) (1 text)
Roud #10068
RECORDINGS:
Vera Hall Ward & Dock Reed, "Look How They Done My Lord" (on NFMAla5)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "When My Lord Went to Pray" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Look How They Done My Lord" (verses)
NOTES: According to the Synoptic gospels (Mark 15:5, etc.), Jesus said very little to Pilate (according to Mark 15:2, two words, SU LEGEIS, loosely, "You said [it].") John, however, records an extended conversation. - RBW
File: LxU102

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Never Take the Horseshoe from the Door

DESCRIPTION: Singer, an Irishman, admonishes listeners to always keep a horseshoe over the door, and lists misfortunes that befell him when he failed to do so, including his wife's "bringing in a horde of her relations."
AUTHOR: Words: Edward Harrigan/Music: Dave Braham
EARLIEST DATE: 1880 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: humorous family magic
FOUND IN: US(MW)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Beck 85, "Never Take the Horseshoe from the Door" (1 text)
Roud #8839
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Mule (Never Take the Hindshoe from a Mule)," which is a parody of this song
NOTES: The version in Beck is fragmentary; I suspect the original is a good deal longer. - PJS
For background on Harrigan and Braham, see the notes to "Babies on Our Block." - RBW
File: Be085

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Never Wed a' Auld Man

See Maids When You're Young Never Wed an Old Man (File: K207)

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New Ballad of Lord Lovell, The (Mansfield Lovell)

DESCRIPTION: "Lord Lovell he sat in St. Charles Hotel... A-cutting as big a rebel swell... As you'd ever wish to see." His thirty thousand soldiers dwindle away to a bare handful, and "gallant old Ben sailed in with his men And captured their great citee..."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1925 (Cox)
KEYWORDS: Civilwar parody humorous soldier
FOUND IN: US(Ap,So)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Belden, pp. 52-54, "Lord Lovel" (3 texts, of which the Ga text is this piece)
JHCoxIIA, #8A-C, pp. 32-37, "Lord Lovell," "Lord Lovell" (3 texts, 1 tune, but the "C" fragment is this piece)
Darling-NAS, p. 48, "The New Ballad of Lord Lovell" (1 text)
Roud #7942; also 48
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lord Lovel [Child 75]" and references there
NOTES: Although the song provides few precise details, it clearly refers to the Federal capture of New Orleans in 1862. The Confederate commander was Mansfield Lovell (1822-1884). According to Foote, p. 360, Lovell was a "Maryland-born West Pointer who had resigned as New York Deputy Street Commissioner to join the Confederacy in September. Impressed with the Chapultepec-brevetted artilleryman's record as an administrator, [Jefferson] Davis made him a major general and sent him to... New Orleans."
By the time New Orleans was attacked by Farragut's naval forces, the regular garrison of the city had been stripped to reinforce Albert Sydney Johnston; most of them would fight at Shiloh (McPherson, p. 418). According to Carter, pp. 8-9, "On taking over in October 1861, Lovell found the city had been 'greatly drained of arms, ammunition, clothing, and supplies,' which had been sent to other war zones. His land forces, moreover, consisted of only 3,000 short-term volunteers, a 'heterogeneous militia, armed mostly with shotguns.'"
Naturally, these forces had little mobility or ability to fight in the field. The real defenses of New Orleans consisted of river forts and a few small ships. Yet, in 1861, Lovell found "Naval preparations were in equally poor shape" (Carter, p. 9). The Confederate attempts to build better, ironclad, ships faltered under their limited industrial capacity; the ships just weren't ready in time (McPherson, p. 419). The Federals failed to destroy the river forts with mortars, but Admiral Farragut was able to run his ships past them and deal with the small Confederate fleet (Foote, pp. 364-369), and that left New Orleans undefended under his guns. Rather than risk the destruction of the city, Lovell retreated with such mobile forces as he had. The garrisons of the river forts then collapsed (Foote, p. 370), and Federal troops were able to come up-river and occupy New Orleans even though the city didn't exactly surrender.
After New Orleans, Lovell briefly held corps command in the west, and demonstrated real skill as a commander. But he was relieved soon after due to political pressure.
"Gallant old Ben" is Benjamin F. Butler, the most-hated man in the Confederacy and possibly the worst general ever to serve under the American flag. "Sluggish and inept as an army commander, Butler owed his preferment to some administrative skill and politics; he was one of the most hated men in the Confederacy" (Dupuy/Johnson/Bongard, p. 116). Butler occupied New Orleans (and subjected it to something close to a reign of terror), but the military skill was all Farragut's. - RBW
Bibliography

• Carter: Samuel Carter III, The Final Fortress: The Campaign for Vicksburg 1862-1863, St. Martin's, 198
• Dupuy/Johnson/Bongard: Trevor N. Dupuy, Curt Johnson, and David L. Bongard, The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, 1992 (I use the 1995 Castle edition)
• Foote: Shelby Foote, The Civil War: A Narrative (Volume I: Fort Sumter to Perryville) (Random House, 1958)
• McPherson: James M. McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom (The Oxford History of the United States: The Civil War Era), Oxford, 1988

Last updated in version 2.5
File: DarNS047

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New Broom Sweeps Clean, A

See As I Walked Out (I) (A New Broom Sweeps Clean) (File: HHH109)

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New Bully, The

See references under The Bully of the Town [Laws I14] (File: LI14)

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New Bunch of Loughero, The

DESCRIPTION: Singer meets a lady by the Danube saying "I have lost my Bunch of Loughero" She recalls Napoleon's victories and defeat at Waterloo. Her son says he will raise an army to rescue him. She says "I'll live like chaste Penelope, Still hoping for my Loughero"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: c.1830 (Zimmermann)
KEYWORDS:
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1815 - Defeat at the Battle of Waterloo forces Napoleon into exile
1821 - Death of Napoleon
FOUND IN: Napoleon love dialog family political
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Zimmermann 32A, "The New Bunch of Loughero" (1 text, 1 tune)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Bonny Bunch of Roses, O" (theme)
cf. "Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena)" (theme: Marie Louise's grief for Napoleon)
cf. "The Royal Eagle" (theme: Marie Louise's grief for Napoleon)
cf. "The Removal of Napoleon's Ashes" (theme: Marie Louise's grief for Napoleon)
NOTES: Marie Louise of Austria (1791-1847) is Napoleon's second wife and mother of Napoleon II. She returned to Vienna in 1814 when Napoleon is defeated. (source: "Marie Louise of Austria" at Answres.com site)
Zimmermann: Loughero is from Irish luachair = rushes.
Note the difference between "The Bunch of Loughero" (Napoleon) and "The Bonny Bunch of Roses" (Britain) - BS
This song shares with "Saint Helena (Boney on the Isle of St. Helena)" and "The Royal Eagle" the theme of Marie Louisa's grief for her husband. This is romantic, but false; she refused to go into exile with him to Elba, let alone St. Helena.
In fact, even before Napoleon went to Elba, she is reported to have taken General Adam Adelbert Neipperg as a lover. When he came back during the Hundred Days, she not only refused to join him, she wouldn't even allow him to see his son. By the time Napoleon died, Louisa had borne two children to other fathers. - RBW
File: Zimm032A

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New Bury Loom, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer meets a weaver. He tells her "I am a good joiner by trade." "My shuttle ran well in her lathe" until, after one success, "My strength now began for to fail me." She asks him to try again but he says it will have to wait until he returns.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1980 (Elbourne)
KEYWORDS: sex bawdy weaving
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
ADDITIONAL: Roger Elbourne, Music and Tradition in Early Industrial Lancashire 1780-1840 (Totowa, 1980), pp. 74-76, 135-136, "The New Bury Loom"
NOTES: Bodleian, Harding B 16(167b), "New Bury Loom" ("As I walked between Bolton and Bury"), unknown, no date; also Johnson Ballads 2351, "The New Bury Loom"
Last updated in version 2.5
File: Elb136

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New Buryin' Ground, The

See Way Over in the New Buryin' Groun' (File: San473)

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New Chum Chinaman, The

DESCRIPTION: Irishman Pat McCann, newly arrived in Australia and unable to find work, sees the Chinese working (even if at horrible jobs). He decides to turn himself into "Ah Pat," Chinese immigrant. He describes the steps he will use to take on the part
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1966 (collected by Ron Edwards from Mrs. V.Leonard)
KEYWORDS: foreigner emigration unemployment disguise China
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Fahey-Eureka, pp. 102-104, "The New Chum Chinaman" (1 text, 1 tune)
Paterson/Fahey/Seal, pp. 134-138, New Chum Chinaman"" (1 text)
File: FaE102

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New Electric Light, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer's wife is desperate for electric lights. She wanders the streets seeking them. One night the singer finds a strange man in the house; it proves to be her cousin, who installs lights. She reportedly amuses herself with the light while he's gone
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1941 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: technology humorous husband wife
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 489, "The New Electric Light" (1 text)
Roud #7585
File: R489

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New England Cocky, The

See The Inglewood Cocky (File: PASB109)

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New Granuwale, The

See Granuwale (File: Zimm029)

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New Ireland Song

DESCRIPTION: The clergy order "not to sell whisky upon a Sunday." Mike Leyden and Tim Long go from place to place in New Ireland looking for rum but only find tea. It being very cold, the boys finally give up and go to bed.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1960 (Creighton-SNewBrunswick)
KEYWORDS: drink humorous
FOUND IN: Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Creighton-SNewBrunswick 116, "New Ireland Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST CrSNB116 (Partial)
Roud #2784
NOTES: Creighton-SNewBrunswick: "New Ireland is a farming community near Elgin" [in south central New Brunswick less than 20 miles north of the Bay of Fundy]. - BS
This seems to be a local composition based on some other local song. The text is reminiscent of "Sweet Betsy from Pike," but the tune is more like "Darby O'Leary" (which is known in New Brunswick). Of course, the latter is rather like "Sweet Betsy" put in minor. - RBW
File: CrSNB116

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New Limit Line, The

DESCRIPTION: "Now we left our own homes, for the woods we were bent...." The singer describes hiring out to the New Limit Line. They reach the line with great difficulty, but work hard and are happy at the camp. Many of the other workers there are listed
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1964 (Fowke)
KEYWORDS: lumbering work travel
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Fowke-Lumbering # 12, "The New Limit Line" (1 text, 1 tune)
ST FowL12 (Partial)
Roud #4369
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Fox River Line (The Rock Island Line)" [Laws C28] (tune)
File: FowL12

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New Market Wreck, The

DESCRIPTION: "The Southern Railway had a wreck at ten o'clock one morn, Near Hodge's and New Market ground...." A conductor misreads his orders, and two trains collide. The singer hopes the other conductor is in heaven, and adds other details
AUTHOR: Robert Hugh Brooks
EARLIEST DATE: 1906 (copyright)
KEYWORDS: train wreck death
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Sep 24, 1904 -- the New Market Wreck. The conductor of the #15 train admitted to misreading his orders and causing the wreck; reports say that at least 56 people died
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 227-231, "The New Market Wreck" (1 text plus an early sheet music print, 1 tune)
Roud #4904
RECORDINGS:
Mr. & Mrs. J. W. Baker, "The Newmarket Wreck" (Victor 20863, 1927)
George Reneau, "The New Market Wreck" (Vocalion 14930, 1924)
NOTES: According to Cohen, there is a second song about this event, "The Southern Railroad Wreck," by Charles O. Oaks. It seems to be rarely encountered; neither that nor this appears to be traditional. - RBW
File: LSRa228

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New Moon, True Moon

DESCRIPTION: "New moon, true moon, Tell me who shall marry me; Tell me the color of his hair, The garments he shall wear."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1934 (Henry, from Mrs. Henry C. Gray, or her maid)
KEYWORDS: marriage courting clothes hair nonballad
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
MHenry-Appalachians, p. 238, (no title) (1 short text)
File: MH238D

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New Mown Hay, The

See TheTossing of the Hay (File: HHH635)

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New Organ, The

DESCRIPTION: The singer complains about the new organ and choir being installed in the church. She's served the church for 35 years with money and time, "but now their old new-fangled ways Are coming all about And I right in my latter days Am fairly crowded out"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (Randolph)
KEYWORDS: music clergy rejection
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Randolph 863, "The New Organ" (1 text)
Roud #7534
NOTES: I don't know how many old fogies (or old Baptists) were complaining about the installation of organs in the 1920s, but I know there are plenty of new fogies in the churches complaining that there isn't enough music and that these new ministers never play the familiar stuff. New era, same grumblers.... - RBW
File: R863

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New Orleans Jail, The

See The Cryderville Jail (File: LxU090)

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New Plantation, The

DESCRIPTION: "Our bonnie laddies are a' gaun awa' To plenish the new Plantation." After crossing the ocean they are welcomed with food and a girl. But the girls are yellow and "a piece of gold ... Was all they had for a napkin." The singer wishes he had never come.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1910 (GreigDuncan3)
KEYWORDS: emigration settler
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Greig #132, p. 2, "The New Plantation" (1 text)
GreigDuncan3 536, "The New Plantation" (1 text)
Roud #6014
NOTES: Just which "new plantation" is this? Someplace in America? West Indies? Cape Breton? - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: GrD5356

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New Policeman, The

DESCRIPTION: Michael Karney arrives fom Dublin and joins the police. He climbs into yards and garden and steals what he finds. He steals from anyone he finds sleeping. He's "in with every servant maid For mutton and love." "That's the life of a new Policeman"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: before 1879 (broadside, LOCSinging sb30357b)
KEYWORDS: sex violence theft humorous rake police
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (1 citation):
GreigDuncan8 1750, "The New Policeman" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Roud #13133
BROADSIDES:
Bodleian, Harding B 11(1790), "The Irish New Policeman" ("Your pardon gents and ladies all"), unknown, no date
LOCSinging, sb30357b, "The New Policeman" ("Oh good evening gentlemen to-day"), H. De Marsan (New York), 1864-1878
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Nora Creina" (tune, per broadside LOCSinging sb30357b)
cf. "Are You There Moriarity" (tune, per OLochlainn)
NOTES: GreigDuncan8 is a fragment; broadside LOCSinging sb30357b is the basis for the description. - BS
Broadside LOCSinging sb30357b: H. De Marsan dating per Studying Nineteenth-Century Popular Song by Paul Charosh in American Music, Winter 1997, Vol 15.4, Table 1, available at FindArticles site. - BS
Last updated in version 2.5
File: GrD1750

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New Prisoner's Song

DESCRIPTION: Singer has seven more to serve, for knocking a man down and taking his watch. He remembers his home and family. Chorus: "Sitting alone, sad all alone/Sitting in my cell all alone/A-thinking of those good times gone by me/A-knowing that I once had a home"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1927 (recording, Dock Boggs)
LONG DESCRIPTION: Singer, in prison for seven years, has seven more to serve, for knocking a man down in the alley and taking his watch. He remembers his home and family, and wonders if they think of him. Chorus: "Sitting alone, sad all alone/Sitting in my cell all alone/A-thinking of those good times gone by me/A-knowing that I once had a home"
KEYWORDS: captivity homesickness crime prison robbery family prisoner
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Creighton-NovaScotia 141, "Prisoner's Song" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
Mackenzie 121, "The Prisoner's Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #11730
RECORDINGS:
Dock Boggs, "New Prisoner's Song" (Brunswick 133A/Vocalion 5114 [5144?], 1927); (on Boggs1, BoggsCD1)
Slim Smith, "Sad and Alone" (Vocalion 05082, c. 1927)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "The Prisoner's Song (I)"
NOTES: Although the plots are virtually identical, this is quite distinct from the "Prisoner's Song." That has the chorus "If I had the wings of an eagle," which this does not, although I strongly suspect it was composed in flagrant imitation. [Borrowing a few items from "Botany Bay" along the way. - RBW] Mike Seeger, incidentally, notes that there is at least one other recording of this song from the 1920s, presumably Slim Smith's. - PJS
Roud, of course, lumps this with the "other" Prisoner's Song. - RBW
Mackenzie has the "Lonely and sad, sad and lonely" chorus but also has as the final verse "I wish I had the wings of an eagle...." - BS
File: RcNPS

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New River Shore, The (The Green Brier Shore; The Red River Shore) [Laws M26]

DESCRIPTION: The singer is forced to leave his sweetheart (possibly due to manipulation by her parents). She begs that he return. When he does, he is ambushed by a band of men hired by her father. He wins the battle and goes on to claim the girl
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (Cecil Sharp collection)
KEYWORDS: separation love fight
FOUND IN: US(Ap,NE,SE) Canada(Mar)
REFERENCES (8 citations):
Laws M26, "The New River Shore (The Green Brier Shore; The Red River Shore)"
Mackenzie 48, "The New River Shore" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownII 85, "New River Shore" (1 text)
SharpAp 142, "The Green Brier Shore" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-FSNA 206, "The Red River Shore" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, p. 412, "Red River Shore" (1 text)
Fife-Cowboy/West 57, "Red River Shore" (2 texts, 1 tune)
DT 329, GRNBRIER*
Roud #549
RECORDINGS:
Bud Billings' Trio w. Carson Robison, "On the Red River Shore" (Montgomery Ward M-4101, 1933)
Patt Patterson & Lois Dexter, "On the Red River Shore" (Perfect 12650, 1930; Conqueror 7711, 1931; on MakeMe)
Art Thieme, "The Red River Shore" (on Thieme04)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Earl Brand" [Child 7]
cf. "Erlinton" [Child 8]
cf. "The Green Brier Shore (II)" (lyrics)
NOTES: The title implies a relationship to "The Girl on the Greenbriar Shore," but the plot is noticeably different. One rather suspects that the latter piece is a fragment rebuilt almost from scratch (and then, perhaps, further modified by the Carter Family). - RBW
File: LM26

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New River Train

DESCRIPTION: "(Honey Babe/Darling), you can't love one (x2), You can't love one and still have any fun, Honey Babe, you can't..." Similarly, "You can't love two and still be true..." "You can't love three and still have me..." Etc.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (recording, Henry Whitter)
KEYWORDS: love nonballad infidelity floatingverses
FOUND IN: US(SE)
REFERENCES (7 citations):
Cohen-LSRail, pp. 466-471, "New River Train" (1 text, 1 tune)
BrownIII 103, "Darling, You Can't Love but One" (1 text)
Scarborough-SongCatcher, pp. 124-125, "Honey Babe" (1 text, without the chorus, filed under Child #76 along with a "Pretty Little Foot" fragment and a version of "I Truly Undertand That You Love Some Other Man")
Abrahams/Foss, p. 73, "Darlin' You Can't Have One" (1 text, 1 tune)
Lomax-ABFS, pp. 158-159, "Darlin'" (1 text, 1 tune)
PSeeger-AFB, p. 74, "New River Train" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber-FSWB, p. 143, "New River Train" (1 text)
Roud #4568
RECORDINGS:
Cauley Family, "New River Train" (Perfect 13032, 1934)
Crazy Hillbillies Band, "Leaving on the New River Train" (OKeh 45579, 1934)
Vernon Dalhart, "New River Train" (Columbia 15032-D, c. 1925) (Herwin 75506, mid-to-late 1920s)
Sid Harkreader, "New River Train" (Vocalion 15035, 1925)
Kelly Harrell, "New River Train" (Victor 19596, 1925; on KHarrell01) (Victor 20171, 1926; on KHarrell01)
Monroe Brothers, "New River Train" (Bluebird B-6645, 1936)
Old Brother Charlie & the Corn Crib Trio, "New River Train" (Mercury 6206, 1949)
Ridge Rangers, "The New River Train" (AFS 1693 A2, 1939; on LC61)
Pete Seeger, "New River Train" (on PeteSeeger24), (on PeteSeeger33, PeteSeegerCD03)
Ernest V. Stoneman Family, "New River Train" (on Stonemans01); Ernest V. Stoneman, Willie Stoneman, and the Sweet Brothers, "New River Train" (Gennett 6619 [as by Justin Winfield] /Supertone 9400 [as by Uncle Ben Hawkins], 1929)
Wade Ward, "New River Train" [instrumental] (on Holcomb-Ward1)
Henry Whitter, "The New River Train" (OKeh 40143, 1924)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Mole in the Ground" (tune, floating lyrics)
cf. "My Last Gold Dollar" (floating lyrics)
cf. "Crawdad"
cf. "Going Around the World (Banjo Pickin' Girl, Baby Mine)"
NOTES: "Honey Babe" and "New River Train" are two versions of the same set of verses, the difference being that the latter has a chorus about the "New River Train" ("Riding on that new river train (x2), Same old train that brought me here Is soon gonna carry me away").
It's not clear which is the original form, but I'm guessing the former. - RBW
Well, [you] may be wrong here; the "New River Train" version dates back to at least 1924 (Whitter's recording). And Fields Ward says he learned it c. 1895. - PJS
In any case, "New River Train" is now the more familiar version (see the recording list), so I eventually adopted that title.
Cohen has notes about the origin of the name "New River Train"; there apparently was no line with that name, but several railroads had track in the New River area and would presumably have been given that name informally. What's more, the earliest recordings he cites (Whitter's and Harrell's) are by residents of that part of Virginia. Vernon Dalhart's recording was similar to and likely based on Harrell's, and that no doubt helped put the song in popular consciousness.
Cohen does report, however, that few versions other than Ernest Stoneman's have much real railroad content. That is the main reason why I thought (and still sort of think) the versions without the New River Train chorus likely to be original. - RBW
File: AF073

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New Road, The

DESCRIPTION: "For fifty years I've known a woodland Of patriarchal trees, Their roots grown deep in good land, Boughs swaying in the breeze." The singer recalls how farmers came and made the land their own. But now their fields and homes are being separate by roads.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1939 (Thomas)
KEYWORDS: home farming technology
FOUND IN: US(Ap)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Thomas-Makin', pp. 261-262, (no title) (1 text)
File: ThBa262

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New Song (I), A

See Well Met, Pretty Maid (The Sweet Nightingale) (File: K089)

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New Song (II), A

See The Good Old Days of Adam and Eve, The (File: Beld431)

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New War Song by Sir Peter Parker, A

See Sir Peter Parker (File: SBoa064)

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New Yealand

See Lizie Lindsay [Child 226] (File: C226)

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New Year's Sermon, The

DESCRIPTION: "Hello, Mr. Jones! We wish you a happy new year -- to you and your wife and your sons... And if our wishes find you good, 'Tis better than the year before the flood." Listeners are warned of times to come, including battles -- and then muskets are let off
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (Belden)
KEYWORDS: nonballad recitation wassail
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Belden, p. 514, "The New Year's 'Sermon'" (1 text)
Roud #7830
NOTES: A sort of a Missouri wassail, in which the performers went from house to house begging for entertainment -- but perhaps with a bit of a threat element, since they all had firearms.... - RBW
File: Beld514

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New York Girls

See Can't You Dance the Polka (New York Girls) (File: Doe058)

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New York to Queenstown

DESCRIPTION: Ship leaves New York Sunday, December 2 and runs into a heavy sea. "The companion and the wheel-house were swept right clean away." At Queenstown the captain reports to "an aged father ... 'Your son fell from our main royal yard, a victim to the sea.'"
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1948 (Ranson)
KEYWORDS: death sea ship storm sailor father
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ranson, pp. 20-21, "New York to Queenstown" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Bold Larkin (Bull Yorkens)" (theme)
File: Ran020

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New York Trader, The

See Captain Glen/The New York Trader (The Guilty Sea Captain A/B) [Laws K22] (File: LK22)

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New-Chum's First Trip, The

DESCRIPTION: A young drover relates the events of his first drive, which has turned out to be harder work than he expected.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1957
KEYWORDS: work travel
FOUND IN: Australia
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Hodgart, p. 232, "The New-Chum's First Trip" (1 text)
Roud #8241
File: Hodg232

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